A/A refueling question...

[fitness88]

The videos I've seen mention having the HUD 10 degree ladder line lined up with the fuel hose wing level. I can only see the HUD 10 degree ladder line when I'm slightly nose up [500+ ft vertical velocity]. Am I supposed to be able to see the HUD 10 degree ladder line flight level like in this photo because I don't?

Capture.JPG

 

Thank you.

Edited March 24, 2019 by fitness88

[104th_Maverick]

Forget all about the pitch ladder sir and look directly at the refuelling pod under the tanker wing instead.

 

Use your peripheral vision to line up your probe with the basket while still staring at the refuel pod, this way you wont be dependant on being at a certain airspeed to see the 10 degree mark on the pitch ladder.

 

In my first AAR video on the Hornet I referenced the 10 degree pitch ladder mark however after getting more experience I stopped relying on that and instead just focused on the refuel pod instead.

I went in to more detail in my second Hornet AAR video 'DCS Fuel School' at the link below. I've linked it to the time stamp of where I discuss what you should be looking at as you approach the basket.

 

[fitness88]

;3855493']Forget all about the pitch ladder sir and look directly at the refuelling pod under the tanker wing instead.

 

Use your peripheral vision to line up your probe with the basket while still staring at the refuel pod, this way you wont be dependant on being at a certain airspeed to see the 10 degree mark on the pitch ladder.

 

In my first AAR video on the Hornet I referenced the 10 degree pitch ladder mark however after getting more experience I stopped relying on that and instead just focused on the refuel pod instead.

I went in to more detail in my second Hornet AAR video 'DCS Fuel School' at the link below. I've linked it to the time stamp of where I discuss what you should be looking at as you approach the basket.

 

 

 

Thanks for the response...yes it was your video that I was watching with the 10 degree pitch ladder reference. I will now watch your newer link provided and let you know how it goes...

 

 

OK I took a look at your video, my first question is what part of the plane are you referencing the pod to? I can't just look at the pod and move my plane into position without a reference to my frame. As I see it you are still using the 10 degree pitch ladder right side to line up with the pod. I'm curious how come your 10 degree pitch ladder shows when you are flight level? I barely see the 5 degree pitch ladder when I'm flight level. I get not being focused on the basket.

Edited March 24, 2019 by fitness88

[ravenzino]

...... I can't just look at the pod and move my plane into position without a reference to my frame. ......

 

That probably is actually what you should do, well at least in my case. And in my opinion, you probably don't really need a reference point on your airframe. (Or far far less important than you thought)

 

Do formation flying with the tanker for an extended period, make sure you can fluently stabilize and sync yourself with the tanker for as long as you want, and can micro adjust your position around instantly as you desire without having to translate your desired movement of the frame into that of the throttle and stick. I can't stress more on this: your have to get this feeling right, as if you were driving your car and keep a very precise sync with another car in the next lane (relative position, distance and speed) as if you were doing a CCR (Car-to-Car-Refueling. yep, I just made it up :smilewink:).

 

Then, you extend the probe. Do not get into the basket yet. Keep yourself in sync with the tanker and close in in a very low closing speed. The point is to keep everything stable and doing all these things without looking at anything else but the pod. When your probe is very near the basket (using your peripheral vision on the basket while still looking at the pod), and your plane is not bumping everywhere, you now have your reference point. Actually, when you finally get this done, you don't really need that reference point anymore...

 

There are a couple of other reasons why I believe you shouldn't use a reference point on your airframe:

1. the reference point could change under different air speed due to slight difference of AoA

2. basket/probe system allows you to move in a fairly roomy area, so you are probably looking at a reference area rather than a single point somewhere on your hud...

3. when you and the tanker are in a turn, the relative position will slightly change. This would be especially troublesome when your probe is not yet in the basket and you are trying to connect them.

 

I'm not a expert, so I could be very wrong... But this is how I nailed my AAR and I do believe it is the right approach...

 

Hope it helps.

[ravenzino]

One more tip:

 

When you staring at the pod, your peripheral vision shall cover the entire tanker, so you are looking at the tanker as a whole. By doing so, you'll have an idea of the change of distance as your eyes can now interpreting/decoding the distance by the change of the tanker's size.

 

Forget about it if you are using VR......

[ravenzino]

And I just realised, to see the 10 degree ladder line, you need to do AAR at a lower speed. When the speed is lower, the VV will be lower on the HUD, allowing more room above to show that 10 degree line.

[104th_Maverick]

As I see it you are still using the 10 degree pitch ladder right side to line up with the pod.

 

 

I'm not, I don't reference the pod to any part of the aircraft. Instead I'm focusing on nothing but the fuelling pod in front of me.

You use your peripheral vision to do all the lining up rather than trying to line up something with a point on your aircraft.

You can do this in VR or non VR, its the same technique that they teach in real life to do AAR.

 

It sounds strange but it really does work. Stare at the refuelling pod and then line your probe up with the basket using your peripheral vision, after some practice it becomes very easy and the technique is the same for every aircraft that basket refuels with the probe in front of the aircraft in the pilots eye line.

 

 

In the link I sent you at the start of that video you see I connect while leaned all the way over to the right so I can't even see the HUD.

I made another one below with the HUD off and leaned over to the side to show that you don't need to line up anything in the HUD at all.

 

[fitness88]

Gentlemen you both are saying the same thing to me so it must be the way to go...I'm off to practice.

I want to thank you both for taking the time to share the details!

[DeltaMike]

That didn't work for me either, I'm in VR so it depends on where my head is, if I move my chair a little bit it throws my references off. One one level, a lot of it is peripheral vision, I think you get more of a feeling of relative velocity in your peripheral vision. Also I find I tend to go where I'm looking. I would agree that looking at the pod seems to get everything pointed in the right direction, although I wouldn't say I'm staring at the pod, that's just where I'm looking.

 

On another level it's reacting before the stimulus, it's a matter of anticipating what you have to do. One way of thinking about it is, everything you have to do, you have to undo. If you move the stick to the right you're gonna have to move it to the left. If you advance the throttle you have to pull it back too. So you never just do one thing. Hm I'll move to the right a little. Now I'll move forward a little. No. Stick goes rightleft. Throttle goes backforward. Forwardback. Backforward. Little teeny movements in pairs. Also breathe.

 

When I got frustrated with refueling I shot the tanker down. When I got bored with shooting I learned how to nudge it offcourse by whacking the tail with my nose. When I figured out how to do that, I was able to refuel. Go figure.

[fitness88]

I did some practicing.

I think I've been watching my HUD speed too much, now I'm watching less and looking toward the tanker more and trying to feel the movement more. I was able to get better control of my speed staying with the tanker.

However I found myself having too much vertical up/down! Don't yell...once I initiated baro A/P I was able to control vertical motion and that allowed my to focus more on inching into the basket and staying there longer and longer with each try.

So I guess you're going tell me I need to stop with the bad habit of using A/P and work more on my vertical control.

[Theodore42]

I did some practicing.

I think I've been watching my HUD speed too much, now I'm watching less and looking toward the tanker more and trying to feel the movement more. I was able to get better control of my speed staying with the tanker.

However I found myself having too much vertical up/down! Don't yell...once I initiated baro A/P I was able to control vertical motion and that allowed my to focus more on inching into the basket and staying there longer and longer with each try.

So I guess you're going tell me I need to stop with the bad habit of using A/P and work more on my vertical control.

 

Looking at the tanker to control speed instead of the airspeed indicator helped me a lot.

 

Also, are you looking at your vertical velocity and trimming it out to 0? I didn't watch the video but these are the two things that helped me hook up and maintain, regardless of alitiude, airspeed, aircraft weight, or other variables.

 

Good luck!

[104th_Maverick]

So I guess you're going tell me I need to stop with the bad habit of using A/P and work more on my vertical control.

 

You need to stop the bad habit of using the A/P and start working more on your vertical control. :smilewink:

 

Seriously tho, the more practice you get at doing it properly the easier it will become. Once you have enough practice AAR is actually very routine and not as big a deal as you think when you first start out.

 

 

:thumbup:

Edited March 24, 2019 by [Maverick]

[fitness88]

Thanks to both for the info and encouragement. Actually I believe it will be a natural thing eventually but getting it down is the hard part...patience~

 

 

I promise I won't use the A/P

[fitness88]

;3855836']I'm not, I don't reference the pod to any part of the aircraft. Instead I'm focusing on nothing but the fuelling pod in front of me.

You use your peripheral vision to do all the lining up rather than trying to line up something with a point on your aircraft.

You can do this in VR or non VR, its the same technique that they teach in real life to do AAR.

 

It sounds strange but it really does work. Stare at the refuelling pod and then line your probe up with the basket using your peripheral vision, after some practice it becomes very easy and the technique is the same for every aircraft that basket refuels with the probe in front of the aircraft in the pilots eye line.

 

 

In the link I sent you at the start of that video you see I connect while leaned all the way over to the right so I can't even see the HUD.

I made another one below with the HUD off and leaned over to the side to show that you don't need to line up anything in the HUD at all.

 

 

 

 

I'm flying with Oculus. Focusing on the pod with peripheral of the basket, I'm either too high too low a little left a little right of the basket. Each time I try I'm not improving, I may get lucky once in awhile but I really don't have a sense of it. Are you intercepting the basket while aiming your probe toward the pod that's what it looks like in your video?

Anyway I may have to break my promise and use A/P, at least that way I had a system that worked.

[Hog_No32]

;3856470']

Seriously tho, the more practice you get at doing it properly the easier it will become. Once you have enough practice AAR is actually very routine and not as big a deal as you think when you first start out.

 

:thumbup:

 

Very true. And I just realized how much of a perishable skill it is. I considered myself somewhat proficient in AAR and once I mastered it in the Hornet I usually plugged in at the first or second „stab“ and stayed on the basket as long as needed (at least on the KC-130 and KC-135MPRS...the S-3 was a bit harder in the beginning due to its shorter hose).

 

Now I didn‘t had time to fly a lot for about the last two or three weeks and just hopped in the Hornet last night. I realized I found it much more difficult to do AAR after a couple of weeks without being exposed to it.

 

So even if you have mastered AAR once - keep practicing, practicing, practicing. :smilewink:

[104th_Maverick]

Are you intercepting the basket while aiming your probe toward the pod that's what it looks like in your video?

 

I'm staring at the refuel pod under the tanker wing while using my peripheral vision to line up my probe with the basket.

 

You can practice this by watching the video a few times over and over again. Try to watch it without looking directly at the basket, instead stare at the refuel pod and practice tracking the basket without directly looking at it.

[ravenzino]

I'm flying with Oculus. Focusing on the pod with peripheral of the basket, I'm either too high too low a little left a little right of the basket. Each time I try I'm not improving, I may get lucky once in awhile but I really don't have a sense of it. Are you intercepting the basket while aiming your probe toward the pod that's what it looks like in your video?

Anyway I may have to break my promise and use A/P, at least that way I had a system that worked.

 

I flew TrackIR until tonight...

 

Flew in VR for the first time, took me a little while to get familiar with basic maneuvering when rendezvous with KC-130. Just needed to "recalibrate" the sense of control.

 

Then I started to closing in with probe extended. Failed 1st and probably 2nd attempt, and got it right in the 3rd. Kept tethered since then for quite a while during which I flipped the fuel dump switch to extend the play time.

 

Point is, trust yourself and be relax. I mean mentally... Physically, your arm muscles shall probably be very busy to keep on moving throttle and stick... Mentally, you were prepared and feel relaxed as you know AAR requires your constant input anyway as you indeed will move around and you'll never find a sweet spot to settle in for even just 1 second.

 

So yes, you are supposed to be "either too high too low a little left a little right of the basket". You are on the right track. Keep on practicing, you are very close now.

 

How you would improve from here:

1. You might always find yourself moving around the basket. but with practice, the departure shall be slightly getting less. A super smooth closing-in, however, is less likely to happen.

2. A successful contact is most likely to be, if not always, a "slide-in", instead of "put-in", at least in my case, due to the delay between stick/throttle input and its effect. With your eyes always locked onto the pod and feel everything else using peripheral vision, you start with moving around the basket with your stick while throttling back and forth like teasing the basket in little distance using your probe... then you find a right opportunity where you feel the movement of the probe is probably right towards the center of the basket, so you give a tiny little extra throttle to "slide" the probe into the basket. Once contact, do prepare for immediately re-stabilizing yourself to compensate that tiny little extra movement cause by that tiny little extra throttle.

 

That's it. No magic.

 

The A/P method has some merits as you have one less dimension to deal with. However, you probably will limit that method for "unit practice" only. In my case, I tried A/P and thought it would help me a lot. But in the end, the only benefit I got from that was my throttle/speed control...

[macedk]

A step before all this is just to fly formation and ease your shoulders (not kiddin). If you hold your joystick in a death grip, then you will have a hard time :)

 

If jet seems super twitchy, have a look at your control curvature. For me with a warthog stick, the default value was way off.

[DeltaMike]

Re vertical movement. Problem is if you pitch up you slow down, and vice versa. Once you're hooked up you slide forward a little, slack the hose, that gives you some wiggle room.

 

You're flying in formation with the tanker. The position of the basket is merely a constraint on the geometry of the formation, and the length of the hose is a constraint on your precision. I can't fly with enough precision to nail the basket, I have to snag it on the way in. The basket is not my target, the target is an area of space about six feet further in

 

If you're aiming for the basket you'll miss most of the time, when you do hit it, you'll disconnect almost immediately. If you're aiming for your space under the tankers wing you'll miss the basket most if the time. But if you do hit it, you'll stay connected

Edited March 25, 2019 by DeltaMike

[fitness88]

Wow, thanks for all this great information, really a lot of good reading hear and I'll be reading it again. Throttle control has improved quite a bit without using the A/P now by actually having used the A/P because it allowed focus of micro inputs. Now I can anticipate response to micro throttling while always keeping the throttle moving which allows me to avoid playing catch-up all the time.

I have been practicing formation flying as that seems the most logical pre-requisite to AAR. Without A/P I can hang with the tanker in fairly close proximity with good lateral/vertical control. However once I go for the basket connection my plane starts moving around too much. I will still practice formation flying and also try again to focus on the pod with peripheral aligning to the basket.

Thanks again all!

[kengou]

AA refueling is all about staring at the tanker and flying in reference to the tanker. No other reference should be needed, no speed, no altitude, no hud. Just formation with the tanker. Once in position behind the basket, creep forward making tiny adjustments sweeping eyes from tanker to basket (or basket in peripheral vision). Think of it as a slow-motion lunge/spear into the basket (very slow). If you miss, throttle down a little, back up, then try again. Once hooked, go closer to the tanker a bit for some slack then fly formation again staring at the tanker. That's all you gotta do.

[fitness88]

AA refueling is all about staring at the tanker and flying in reference to the tanker. No other reference should be needed, no speed, no altitude, no hud. Just formation with the tanker. Once in position behind the basket, creep forward making tiny adjustments sweeping eyes from tanker to basket (or basket in peripheral vision). Think of it as a slow-motion lunge/spear into the basket (very slow). If you miss, throttle down a little, back up, then try again. Once hooked, go closer to the tanker a bit for some slack then fly formation again staring at the tanker. That's all you gotta do.

 

 

 

Getting into basket position is what I need to work on, as mentioned here is where I start losing formation flying and start bobbing.

[tosmonkey]

what helped me more than anything was finally having a joystick that I could make the minute changes needed to line up and stay connected. If you are constantly fighting centering spring pressure in the stick it becomes difficult to make small changes. I had an old Logitech extreme 3d pro that i removed the spring from. Made all the difference in the world. I can now fly with just my fingertips and make very precise corrections.

[fitness88]

what helped me more than anything was finally having a joystick that I could make the minute changes needed to line up and stay connected. If you are constantly fighting centering spring pressure in the stick it becomes difficult to make small changes. I had an old Logitech extreme 3d pro that i removed the spring from. Made all the difference in the world. I can now fly with just my fingertips and make very precise corrections.

 

 

 

What gets your j-stick re-centred?

[Red_Donkey]

Don't care about speed indicators. But use engine pitch sound for those fine adjustments. But don't "read" the sound pitch as a gauge, you don't want it to settle at a perfect pitch..... become the sound... become the engine! Never settle with a "perfect" throttle position. Up and down... all the time :)

 

I went from hating refueling to it being some kind of DCS yoga to me. I love it. It's my favortie thing to do in the sim. Event though I´m still average at it.

 

When I tried it in the F14, I was back at square 1. Much harder. But still. Couple of days later, your brain adapts.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Red_Donkey