Complete Air to Air Refuelling Tutorial - DCS Fuel School - F/A-18C

[danny875]

Awesome video thanks, I can now repeatedly take on 11-12000lb of fuel having watched it.

One thing for me though is that I find myself drifting if I try and look at the AF symbol.

I found it better for me if I focused on the angle of the left engines once in place.

Cheers

Edit: I should add that it is because I use a fairly low FOV that requires me to move my head to track the AF symbol.

Edited September 16, 2018 by danny875
Addition

[Jezzer]

Excellent video :thumbup:, I can now to refuel most of the time.

 

Thank you

 

J

[DeathAngel1]

I just cant deal with refueling...everytime when im trying and get close enought to the tanker, my hornet start moving left-right like sh...it. I get tired of this.:doh:

[Yurgon]

I just cant deal with refueling...everytime when im trying and get close enought to the tanker, my hornet start moving left-right like sh...it. I get tired of this.:doh:

 

That's fairly natural.

 

First and foremost, AAR is formation flying. If you're bad at formation flying, you can't expect to be good at AAR. And if you're a decent formation pilot, it still doesn't mean you'll ace AAR right away, just that it's probably a bit less of a hassle.

 

Despite all the tips and tricks in the world, it all comes down to practice, practice, practice.

 

And at some point, it's going to click. Quite possibly after you've been at it for days, and several hours each day, with absolutely no discernible progress, when you're ready to leave that topic for another life and forget about it for a couple of days. Until you get that nagging feeling that maybe you should give it a few more tries. And all of a sudden, you get it to connect, and to stay connected for a while. From that point on, it only gets easier. But unless you're a natural talent, the only way to get there is practice, however frustrating that is when there just doesn't seem to be any progress. It just takes time to build up the muscle memory.

[ApoNOOB]

One thing I see not stressed enough and might help you is the airspeed. Before you try to trim out and line up make sure you know the airspeed window. Once you have the exact airspeed down your throttle will not stop moving, there is most often no loadout/RPM setting that can hold that. (On that point, try a moderate to heavy loadout first, you will be more draggy and slower, making your throttle changes less noticeable)

 

 

Personally I don't try to stay in actual formation with the carrier (I am too wobbly for that myself too), but move in a small window that won't disconnect me forward and backward. In the best case this looks like formation flying but is just me fighting tooth and nail trying to stay connected. xD

 

 

Once the airspeed moves up or downards your pitch will change aswell a tiny bit, this is really important, do net get caught off guard by it and has to do with my first point. You will probably never have that 'sweet trim' setting that you are hoping to get. The hornet is imho the most forgiving plane in this. (My xp is mostly with A10C and a bit older) The Hornets engine needs very long to spool up or down, often you will use exaggerated throttle movement only to spool back up or down again a little bit in the other direction. 'Throttle never stops'

 

 

Been a while since I watched Mav's video, but I think he covers bank also. Do under no circumstances try learning A2A refueling with either wind or a banking tanker. Get to that later. Staying with a banking tanker is way more difficult. In the Harrier Mav's different tips (I think from his Harrier vids) for visual line up with fixed points on the tanker & your cockpit helped me a lot, might help here aswell.

 

 

Also everything Yurgon said, I disctinctly remember my frustration when first trying A2A refueling with A-10C years ago. At one point it just 'clicked' and suddenly I was trying circling tankers at night in thunderstorms.

 

 

Take breaks, if in SP use the pause buttons, relax your shoulders/arms etc., do not get frustrated we have all been there! It might be worth to have a look at your hardware & configuration aswell. For example with my very old T-Flightstick X(not HOTAS) back in the day, A2A refueling was terribly difficult because of the airspeed/RPM settings. The throttle just was not fine enough to ever get the needed tiny adjustments. I used airbrakes to help with this but at clean loadouts/low fuel this was still a big problem.

Edited January 27, 2019 by ApoNOOB

[DeathAngel1]

And how I can stop moving left-right...its impossible whatever i do, hornet keep moving. I use Trhustmaster T 16000 M HOTAS FCS.

[ApoNOOB]

Are you sure you are moving not the tanker? Can you post a track/video? Is there wind? Hornet really shouldn't move all that much at a constant airspeed. What is your loadout?

[DeathAngel1]

Sure, see the track. Thanks.

FailedREFUELING.trk

[ApoNOOB]

"At GRND 4 m/s, 180°" ah no that's at 0 alt, shouldn't be a problem up high? Watching track now.

 

 

Okay I watched first approach and try, first things that caught my eye: ATC (Auto throttle control?) seems to be on. (Might be a track issue IDK), don't use that, haven't fiddled with that, but I think you are not supposed to use that. Second is loadout, try starting with some stores, bombs/missiles & centre line tank. Since you are slower and need to use bigger RPM adjustments for the same result, you will have more 'throttle movement' making it less fine. Basically your window for error should increase.

 

 

Generally, make way way smaller control inputs. Once you are in that '3 kt window' (for example 270kts +/- 1) every increase and decrease will mess with your pitch a bit. On the other hand the same is true, pitch or rather climb changes will mess with your airspeed. This can quickly spiral into a problem.

 

 

Your bank issue: you are mostly over correcting. This can be observed maybe better on a banking aircraft/tanker I am pretty tired and hopefully my explanation won't be too bad, somebody jump in anytime! xD

 

 

When you try to line up and start to bank in one direction (heading on the compass, the basket behind the tanker) your nose starts to move in that direction. Once you simply level out, your aircraft will continue in that 'course' you put it on, most likely moving past the point you wished your aircraft to be at, making you overract and the same thing happen just in the other direction. You will want to make a small counter movement before you pass the point you want to be at. On your track you see that you are always a moment to late, making you pass the boom left and right. This is one part of what we mean with chasing the basket.

 

 

Take you time to properly line up with him, think the boom has a imaginary line behind him you need to line up with. (The course the tanker is flying on) When you are trying to move behind him and just look at the basket, moving straight in a line for it, you will have the issue moving to the side guaranteed.

 

 

 

Have you tried (maybe in different aircraft) any kind of ILS/course flying? Same problem just much slower.

 

 

edit2: I made a quick mission with no wind and all 3 different tankers. You have some stores and can teamkill the tanker if it gets too much.^^

CAUCASUS-F18C A2A REFUELING.miz

Edited January 27, 2019 by ApoNOOB

[DeathAngel1]

ApoNOOB, first of all i wanna thank you so much man, for the excellent explaintation of AA refueling. Its very strange for me to have such kind of problem with refueling, because I have more than 300 hours of Hornet and 600+ carrier landings...

 

But i`ve never tried AA refueling...and when i try that those days, I totally failed...

Just cant hold the plane when im close enought to refuel. Still move up and down and left-right....

[Flamin_Squirrel]

I can't remember who suggested it, but there was a really good idea for practising: slow time down. When you're comfortable, return to normal.

[DeathAngel1]

Seems like all is practice, practice...I just never practice AA refueling.

 

I `ve a lot of practice flying F-18 and i can land on carrier in storm and full darkness without any problems. But I cant do AA refueling:pilotfly:

Edited January 27, 2019 by DeathAngel1

[Yurgon]

Sure, see the track.

 

Thanks for the track.

 

That reminds me a lot of myself. Just that my oscillations were a lot bigger when I started AAR. ;)

 

The problem is that you have to control the aircraft in 3 axes at the same time: roll, pitch, and thrust. Screw any of these up and AAR won't work.

 

In almost any other scenario, it's okay to control one or two of these very intently and updating the remaining axis/axes with a bit of lag. In AAR, the room for error on any of them is so damn small, it'll seem like it just isn't possible.

 

Everything you did in the track was fine until you were close behind the basket. That's when the oscillations started. When you were too low, you pitched up, came too high, pitched down again, and never found the sweet spot. Same for roll/heading.

 

Mostly I believe it comes down to chasing the basket. You're focused on that thing right in front of your jet, and every tiny input takes you away from it.

 

My advice:

 

For every input you make, be prepared to counter that input and don't wait for the jet to overreact. Say you're low and want to climb a few feet. Naturally, you pitch up. Now the jet is in a bit of a climb. So to get to your desired altitude, you have to stop the climb before overshooting the desired altitude, meaning you have to pitch down just a little bit before you reach the desired position. Same is true for all adjustments: Roll, pitch, throttle, doesn't matter. Be prepared to counter any input you make, before the jet's reaction to your input becomes too strong. Simply put: be ahead of the jet.

 

And in order to be ahead of the jet, it takes muscle memory. At some point, your hands will know what to do, and when that happens, it'll free up massive amounts of brain capacity, so that you can start to focus on other stuff, like how much fuel do you need, where to go after you're done refueling, and even talking on the radio while hanging on the basket.

 

Like Maverick says in the video, repeatedly, don't chase the basket. Don't focus on it. Focus on the tanker, and only look at the basket from your peripheral vision. Try to fly the most stable formation off the tanker's wing that you can. For starters, don't declare ready pre contact. Just fly formation off that guy. That'll be difficult enough.

 

Once that starts to feel more familiar and more solid, get him to extend the basket, but don't try to plug in just yet. Again, fly formation, with the basket hanging right in front of your nose. But ignore the basket, fly formation with the tanker instead.

 

And once that feels okay, try to connect.

 

Demo, from your track: Yurgon_DCS_2.5.4_PG_FA-18_AAR.trk (2.2 MB, circa 10 to 15 minutes)

Summary:

- approaching the tanker to the observation area (maybe a bit slow, but better than overshooting)

- preparing the jet

- flying formation in observation area

- flying in formation near the refueling area, no basket

- flying in formation near the refueling area, with basket, no intent to connect

- connect #1, disconnect

- connect #2, disconnect

- botched approach with oscillations and excess airspeed with "Break away!" from the tanker - off to the left for deconfliction until excess speed is bled off, always visual on tanker

- connect #3, disconnect

- cross under and rejoin in reform area, thanks for the service :)

[jameslockridge]

Thank you so much for an extremely well done video. This was a huge help for me, I appreciate the section on the mission editor which I am still working on.

[Steel Jaw]

Cheers

[dawgie79]

Seems like all is practice, practice...I just never practice AA refueling.

 

I `ve a lot of practice flying F-18 and i can land on carrier in storm and full darkness without any problems. But I cant do AA refueling:pilotfly:

I too couldn't at first. Then moved to VR, and suddenly no more problems.

Had the same thing with landing helo's, just couldn't do it until I switched to VR.

 

 

:)

[Eldur]

I just discovered the hidden "Easy AAR" switch

 

 

It's called VR. By the beard of Star Swirl the Bearded, this is easier to do heads down in VR than trying to concentrate on the tanker and staying in place relative to it while doing the whole stuff on a screen

 

 

 

What a friggin' difference this is...

 

 

On a screen: The hardest thing ever in the history of flight simming...

 

In VR: Hold my beer

 

 

Gonna try the You Haych Wone landing thing next out of curiosity, probably...

[Eaglewings]

Yeah I concur with aar refueling being so much easier to do in vr. The 3d perception in vr gives a better view of the basket and line up.

[donkeyrider]

I just discovered the hidden "Easy AAR" switch

 

 

It's called VR. By the beard of Star Swirl the Bearded, this is easier to do heads down in VR than trying to concentrate on the tanker and staying in place relative to it while doing the whole stuff on a screen

 

 

 

What a friggin' difference this is...

 

 

On a screen: The hardest thing ever in the history of flight simming...

 

In VR: Hold my beer

 

 

Gonna try the You Haych Wone landing thing next out of curiosity, probably...

 

Looks like I just found a compelling reason to get a VR headset. Now I have choose which one....

[feefifofum]

AAR and formation flight get 100 times easier, SA improves dramatically...unfortunately they come at the price of target spotting due to resolution limits with current gen headsets.

If you just want the experience of flight in real 3D there's absolutely nothing like it, but I still find my performance suffers vs. my combat flying on the 2D screen.

[Eaglewings]

 

But i`ve never tried AA refueling...and when i try that those days, I totally failed...

Just cant hold the plane when im close enought to refuel. Still move up and down and left-right....

 

 

Hey,

While I have always thought drifting left and right when close to the basket during AAR has got something to do with the controller setting, I just found out the cause.

I have the TWCS (T16000m) throttle and the warthog flight stick.

 

I set the saturation for pitch and roll axes in dcs control page for the X input to 50 while the Y remain at 100.

 

Drifting stopped completely. I could refuel and complete full tank on a single contact.

 

This help curtailed the over correction.

 

Give this a go and see how it goes

[Pizzicato]

Awesome guide! Massively helpful. This should really be a sticky.

[Notso]

Hey @Maverick, thanks again for a very helpful video. After watching it, I was able to get into the basket after a couple of tries. Everytime I ignored the mantra of "Don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket" and peeked at the basket - my attempt went to "sh*t. And the other thing that spot on was once you're in to immediately transition to looking at the KC-130 itself using the canopy bow reference points.

 

Anyway, great tutorial? Well done and thanks. I could never get plugged in before until I watched your video.

 

"Don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket"!!

[BuzzU]

"Don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket, don't look at the basket"!!

 

Every time he said that I looked at the basket. :(

[Outlaw24]

Outstanding guide as usual!