Air-Air Refueling

[dolfo]

That's what you'll do in the end, if you understand what bracketing is, but if you're watching fuel flow, i mean...

 

Not flying the flowmeter. That is a reference to give an idea of how much it is being adjusted.

[BSS_Sniper]

Not flying the flowmeter. That is a reference to give an idea of how much it is being adjusted.

 

 

Ah, gotcha

[Dejjvid]

I’m sure y’all fiddling with AP/ATC, laying tarot cards and aligning the stars would nail AAR in real (manual) mode first time if you set curves to 20 and ONLY focus on the tankers wing, that should be your ONLY reference. Disregard the basket, your brain will take care of that. 99% of the pilots change focus from the wing to the basket when they’re close (10-5 ft), and you WILL oscillate like crazy when you do.

[Eldur]

What button do you map for A/P BALT hold on hotas? I couldn't find it in controls.

 

Look for "UFC Option Select Pushbutton" 1-5.

[Heater741]

I agree with these guys. Time spent practicing is the only thing that will get you there (along with a decent HOTAS because a keyboard ain't gonna cut it). A HUGE factor is knowing EXACTLY what the speed of the tanker is. Unfortunately, the tanker does not give you this information when you ask permission to join (and it should) and the exact speed of the tanker (at this time) does not match the speed you assign it in the mission editor. You're going to have to figure that out once you get in close and take notes. Once you do that, tanking in the F18 will become quite simple...even when the tanker goes into a turn! Have fun!

[Doum76]

I agree with these guys. Time spent practicing is the only thing that will get you there (along with a decent HOTAS because a keyboard ain't gonna cut it). A HUGE factor is knowing EXACTLY what the speed of the tanker is. Unfortunately, the tanker does not give you this information when you ask permission to join (and it should) and the exact speed of the tanker (at this time) does not match the speed you assign it in the mission editor. You're going to have to figure that out once you get in close and take notes. Once you do that, tanking in the F18 will become quite simple...even when the tanker goes into a turn! Have fun!

 

 

Knowing what speed the tanker goes is quite simple, do as RL pilots do, fly on left wing when coming in, this will let you gauge the Tanker's speed as you fly formation with it, adjust trim to that speed, when comfortable get in position then ask for pre-contact. As you'll never know each tanker's speed from the so many servers out there, i always do that on servers and even on my own mission as for the fun of it, realism a bit and gauging the speed, when finished taking fuel i simply fly formation on right wing then break away.

 

 

But as i already said many times, if someone can't fly formation as steady as he can, trying air refueling will always be a nightmare. It's like trying to run before learning to walk.

[webweaver40]

If you want tanker speed, why not just lock him up on your radar?

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[delevero]

How are you guys performing with A2A refueling. My performance is not really good. I have not managed to stay in contact for more than a sec.

 

Whats the trick to stay steady, level and on speed?

 

 

 

1). PRO TIP..: I fly with people who find it difficult to refuel, so i figured out that their main problem was that they had problems with their height and over reacted with the controls near the tanker.

So i came up with the idea for them to turn on the autopilot

and press altitude hold and barometic hold...

 

The reason it when auto pilot is active the controls become very slow., it become more easy to make very small adjustment with your joystick.

And that is the most important regarding refueling to only do small adjustments.

 

( the autopilot trick do not work in all planes, but in the f18c it does )

Now everyone i fly with can air refuel ;-)

 

 

 

2) tip... Before you refuel fly close to the tanker and find out the speed of the tanker and remember the speed.

Also practice tanking at different height and speed by the way.

 

3). Trim the plane before you start to refuel so you fly streight and level.

 

All in all the goal is to make the plane fly level and then focus on controling the power and worry less about up/down left/right.

The less you have to worry about the more easy it is..

 

4). once the above is mastered, then try to notise how far you are from the tanker when refueling and example find fix points on the plane.. example when you look out though the headsup display, maybe you could aim to the left of the engine to keep the direction more easy by following a point on the engine... and about height, maybe you could use part of the canopy frame and find a point on the top of the wing and then try to keep the heading and height constant that way.

 

 

5). practice practice and practice... example practice 1 time everyday then after a few days you have learned how to do it ;-)

 

 

PS... also avoid flying directly behind the jet engines... ;-) fly a bit lower once you are connected or a little to the left of the engine to avoid turbulenc.

 

 

Personaly

 

My air refueling is perfect every time.. It do happen I get to close and then the hose loose connection, but that is kind of rare and i just slide back a little bit and it connect again. I dont tuse the autopilot trick or trim my self but are able to air refuel without... But it is some good advice though.

 

But yes the small refuel planes is by far the most difficult, while the kc130 is more easy and my prefered refuel plane.

Edited August 2, 2018 by delevero

[Victory205]

You might try experimenting with your screen's field of view or zoom level. Makes a difference for obvious reasons.

[Skymad]

I finally managed to do nice AAR in the Hornet... after 1h I wanted to throw the joystick through the window, after 1:30h I managed to refuel in 5 reconnects (distance flown at 300kt at FL100 - 115nm :D) and after 2h I managed to refuel from KC130 in one go and didn't shoot him down afterwards :)

 

I'm using a somewhat bad TM Hotas X (50€) and I had to set up curves for X and Y axis - 15 did the trick. No curve for the throttle. Did not use AP/trim, just flying by hand. Throttle control in fact I find more challenging - it felt like human FBW, more than 1 throttle adjustment a second...

 

Out of A10C, Mirage and the Hornet I find the last one the easiest for AAR, I had biggest trouble with Mirage.

[TechRoss]

If you follow the advice in this thread and just keep practising, it does come. I was at my wits end with AAR and thought well I will be diverting to air fields the rest of my DCS career. Made a point to try AAR at least once a day, and spent an entire day on leave working on it. I am now confident enough to connect in one or two tries and stay connected the whole time. Log says I have 35 refuels under my belt.

 

By no means do I have enough experience to give advice, but a couple things I make a point of now - keep my view centred. I recenter my tracker all the time, I find that if I have been looking at the tanker and then back it is not perfectly centred and that seems to hurt my poor brain. I only glance at the tanker, and never at the basket.

 

Don't stress when the tanker calls break away, break away, ignore it and keep pushing in.

[PX_RGR]

All of the these answers correct. Air-Air refueling is the hardest thing I have done with the A10C. It took me many, many tries to get it right.

 

muehlema....are you using a monitor or VR? I found that refueling in VR is much easier because you can see the the inner boom position better and adjust speed/attitude to successfully refuel. Good luck and keep practicing.

[Bingo123]

Radio Communications

 

Are radio communications working in the Hornet? When ever I turn off easy comms I do not get any feed back from the tower. I have set the tower frequency in the ME and am also tuned into comm 1 -

[sze5003]

Are radio communications working in the Hornet? When ever I turn off easy comms I do not get any feed back from the tower. I have set the tower frequency in the ME and am also tuned into comm 1 -

Last time i flew they worked. Make sure you have comm 1 and comm 2 bound.

[SmilingBandit]

Knowing what speed the tanker goes is quite simple, do as RL pilots do, fly on left wing when coming in, this will let you gauge the Tanker's speed as you fly formation with it, adjust trim to that speed, when comfortable get in position then ask for pre-contact. As you'll never know each tanker's speed from the so many servers out there, i always do that on servers and even on my own mission as for the fun of it, realism a bit and gauging the speed, when finished taking fuel i simply fly formation on right wing then break away.

 

 

But as i already said many times, if someone can't fly formation as steady as he can, trying air refueling will always be a nightmare. It's like trying to run before learning to walk.

 

Unless you are doing radio out refueling then the tanker just tells the receiver their speed IRL.

 

They also tell the receiver that they are going to enter a turn rather than just abruptly banking.

[webweaver40]

If you want to know tanker speed in game, it's as simple as locking him up on radar or f10 and clicking on his icon

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Flamin_Squirrel]

If you want to know tanker speed in game, it's as simple as locking him up on radar or f10 and clicking on his icon

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

F10 shows ground speed, which is almost completely useless.

[tranquillity]

as everyone keeps saying, AAR refueling is really not that hard, even I was able to pick it up, just by doing what people keep reiterating in this thread....keep practising and learn to work the throttle...there is no magic there, other than just doing it.

[Eviscerador]

AAR is like beer. At first if tastes bad and you don't like it, but the more you try, the better it tastes.

 

Now I'm doing AAR just for the sake of it. I love doing it. I've already refuelled several times in the Hornet, the A10C, the A10A and the Eagle.

 

I even tested the AAR bug and refuelled with the Hornet from a Boom KC-135 and with the A10C from the drogue of a KC-130.

 

First time I did it I crashed into the tanker.

 

Second time it took me 10 minutes and 2 pounds of sweat to just make a connect.

 

From there on I keep improving until now that I can keep refuelling even on turns, and I can fill up any plane in one go most of the time.

 

Don't give up.

[Flamin_Squirrel]

as everyone keeps saying, AAR refueling is really not that hard, even I was able to pick it up, just by doing what people keep reiterating in this thread....keep practising and learn to work the throttle...there is no magic there, other than just doing it.

Well that's not really true. It's possible for poor or incorrectly set up hardware to make it next to impossible; practice isn't going to help in that case.

[sze5003]

Well that's not really true. It's possible for poor or incorrectly set up hardware to make it next to impossible; practice isn't going to help in that case.

Agreed it also depends on your hardware. Refueling with the warthog stick and gimbal was a pain, I would end up tired after a while. Made it very difficult because you can't make small tiny adjustments.

 

Now I'm using a vpc warBRD base and grip and I barely touch the stick when I fly. The tiniest and I mean smallest movement gives you a response and then I tried refueling with this new setup and it was still difficult but I connected and stayed connected longer. Much easier to just nudge the stick a teeny little bit for a response.

[Flia]

Yes same here. I started flyinf DCS with Warthog stick and original base. Then i upgraded to Virpil mongoose and now i can refuel woth no problems at all. The difference is abosolutly unbeliviable.

[sze5003]

Yea it's really an unbelievable difference in input. You have to try and see it for yourself because it's tough to explain. I may just use this base with the warthog grip because I like the heaviness of the warthog grip. The MT 50 is extremely light and any little movent will move your aircraft immediately so I think the warthog grip being a bit heavier will offer better control at least for me. But the difference in the base is so much better and precise.

[Eaglewings]

AAR is been no joy with my Logitech X52 Hotas. Best I have managed is a less than 10 seconds refuel period and then loose contact.

Quite concerned the here that Warthog stick does help in those tiny input required AAR because I have bought the Warthog stick.

[Eviscerador]

AAR is been no joy with my Logitech X52 Hotas. Best I have managed is a less than 10 seconds refuel period and then loose contact.

Quite concerned the here that Warthog stick does help in those tiny input required AAR because I have bought the Warthog stick.

 

I've done all my AAR with a X52 hotas no problem. I guess the curves are you main problem.

 

Also, it is not said enough. DON'T CHASE THE BOOM! Fly with the tanker.