Generally why I put the VTOL payloads together, it was prior to being able to ditch rubbish into the sea with a keybind if you expended some but not all (such as only loosing 1 AAM). It isn’t all too important a change, just felt weird to not be able to land with stores compared to ages back.
Was checking it all to make sure it was sim ready for when I return to it in the next week or two, and discovered it no longer worked good 😿
Just tested it, with that full warload you laid out above (including a 25mm ADEN pod) If you start your approach to the carrier about 13 minutes of fuel, by the time you get alongside, you’ll be down to 10 minutes of fuel and can easily hover without water injection. I had to use a short burst to increase my alt a little, but was otherwise flying in formation with the carrier quite happily at about 10-11 mins of fuel with no water injection
14 minutes of fuel = 2200lb which iirc, was about the max the Gr7 was rated to hover at, with no stores. so add on stores. lowers that further.
So being below 14 minutes of fuel when you try to land on a carrier and you should be golden. Especially if you are heading towards the carrier at or around that fuel amount, let alone for when you are actually at the carrier
Harrier: How to be a fighter pilot by Paul Tremelling