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Air refueling?


Shadoware

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Im learning to air refuel and its hard!

 

I can get some fuel but not complete the refueling yet.

 

 

The harder part is to control the speed all the time.

 

Is there some HUD help to air refueling? The real F-16 has one HUD mode for this task?

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I don't even look at the HUD when I'm air refueling. It shows me nothing that I can't discover just by looking at the tanker.

EDIT: There's one exception to this. I bring up the BINGO page on the DED and then repeat it onto the HUD, that allows for very easy monitoring of the fuel level. I guess you could call that an "AAR HUD"


Edited by randomTOTEN
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Same I don't look at the hud speed at all, I'm just watching the tanker and director lights.

I had lots of tries and practice, I really don't have have to look at the hud to know what to do, when to decelerate when to go up and down etc...

Just do tiny movements of stick and throttle to adjust your position.

 

 

It takes lots of practice to get that muscle memory, just like driving a car, specially if you drive a one with a clutch, you just forget how you changed gear once you get enough practice, and what gear your in, cause you are always in the right gear without thinking about it;P

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If you're looking at the instruments during AAR you're doing it wrong. There is no guarantee that the tanker is flying straight, level, constant. Looking out the window at the tanker you should develop an understanding of relative motion to a precision of a fraction of a foot per second.

 

For example you are moving forward, reduce power, airplane slows down and begins to move backward. For a brief moment the motion is zero. That short moment between moving forward and backward is something you have to train yourself to recognize. There is a visible difference between the tanker drifting at .5 knot and 0.

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No air brakes, not at all. Fine adjustments on the throttle are necessary all the time, as are subtle stick corrections.

 

 

Think this way: You have to predict where the plane will be as you're connected and correct accordingly.

 

1 - join up on tanker and match speed;

2 - call for rejoin and get permission to go to pre-contact;

3 - slide into pre-contact carefully and stabilize;

4 - push into the "fuel zone" carefully and keep speed just a bit higher than the tanker's speed;

5 - WATCH the lights on the tanker's belly and keep centered with it with the big yellow line down it;

6 - stabilize with the green lights centered and creep up until they call "taking fuel" (you will see on the lights on the right of the hud when connected)

7 - proceed to get gas and disconnect when completed.

 

I found by applying some "S" curves to my stick to smooth out the middle helped to reduce pilot induced oscillation, or PIO; use about 15-20 for pitch and roll.

 

Help reduce PIO: see it happening before it happens. If you think it is starting release the controls to let the bird - and your brain - stabilize...

 

 

And practice...I have ~190 successful A2A refuels completed and only one out of 5 it without a disconnect.

 

As an aside, even "Mover" said it's a bit easier IRL in one of his DCS videos...lolo!

 

Here's my simple mission for practice:

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3306711/

 

Here's a video of one of my refuel missions:

 

 

I think VR makes it a lot easier than on a screen, FWIW...

 

Oh, and practice!


Edited by DerekSpeare

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Keeping an eye on the HUD is much easier to me yet.

 

 

I tried to watch the tanker right now but its harder.

 

 

When I keep my attention to HUD its easier anticipate my aircraft movements, because the first thing to change is AoA and gun cross moves first. Also I can keep FPM on horizon much easier and see the speed number.

 

Last time, I was switching my view between Hud and Tanker all th time. Its not bad. Its good to look to tanker only when my aircraft is very stable.

 

For awhile that is the only thing that works to me.

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Whatever you may think or believe ... The best thing you can do for progress is turning you HUD off and stop refering to your flight parameters. Your absolute reference is the tanker, not your aircraft. You dont need a speed, you need a relative speed ... etc ... AAR is formation flight, and there is only one way to fly in formation => visual.

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Whatever you may think or believe ... The best thing you can do for progress is turning you HUD off and stop refering to your flight parameters. Your absolute reference is the tanker, not your aircraft. You dont need a speed, you need a relative speed ... etc ... AAR is formation flight, and there is only one way to fly in formation => visual.

 

 

This ^^

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Keeping half an eye on the Velocity Vector tells you when you are entering a dive or climb before the lights show it I think. So I use the HUD, but very sparingly. Eyes out of the cockpit 90% of the time.

 

One other factor you haven't mentioned yet between you is tanker airspeed. Always keep it nice and high for the F-16, so you don't fall back into a flight regime with flaps and slats deployed. I also make a point of switching to the Cat III flight envelope as it makes the controls a little less sensitive, which helps with stability.

 

Other than that, practice practice practice. It is a very difficult evolution, and you need to stick at it to become proficient. You also need to stay current, because you will lose your edge without regular training.

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I've read many people wrote in this forum that refueling in Hornet is much easier than with the Viper. Well I've found it was the opposite and I think I know why. Its because for me refueling in the Viper I just need to stare at the tanker and watch the indicators. I don't need to look at the Hud at all. While with the Hornet I need to make sure I can nail the basket. I've found that distracting but not anymore thou.

In the end, practice makes perfect. Keep trying and just stop whenever you feel tired. Then try again, you'll get there eventually.

 

Good luck and have fun.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. - Lao Tze

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Keeping half an eye on the Velocity Vector tells you when you are entering a dive or climb before the lights show it I think. So I use the HUD, but very sparingly. Eyes out of the cockpit 90% of the time.

 

One other factor you haven't mentioned yet between you is tanker airspeed. Always keep it nice and high for the F-16, so you don't fall back into a flight regime with flaps and slats deployed. I also make a point of switching to the Cat III flight envelope as it makes the controls a little less sensitive, which helps with stability.

 

Other than that, practice practice practice. It is a very difficult evolution, and you need to stick at it to become proficient. You also need to stay current, because you will lose your edge without regular training.

 

Control rates are automatically dampened with the AAR Door open. No need to switch to Cat III.

 

(Cat III only restricts your AOA anyways...)

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Keeping half an eye on the Velocity Vector tells you when you are entering a dive or climb before the lights show it I think.

 

And ... if the tanker itself climb few feet of descent few feet (air mass is not perfect, Tanker's AP is not perfect, ... etc ...)

Your FPM does not tell you anything relevant relative to the tanker. Same about your airspeed.

 

Your absolute reference is (must be) the Tanker. Again, it is formation flight.

You will detect any relative speed/position deltas better and earlier than with any instruments.

 

Trust us. Practice without HUD ... once you know how to fly in formation, your life will never be the same. :thumbup:

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Now you make me interested :D I never did AAR in DCS until now, just in the other sim. There even in turning flight and since I switched to 4K resoloution I am able to see the lights on the bottom. Never had them before, just a visual feeleing where I should be... will try it after some sleep, can´t be too hard here I hope :D

And even easier than air to air combat with this extreme litte radar symbols I nearly can read in normal view.. always have to zoom full into the MFD and loose SA :(

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And ... if the tanker itself climb few feet of descent few feet (air mass is not perfect, Tanker's AP is not perfect, ... etc ...)

Your FPM does not tell you anything relevant relative to the tanker. Same about your airspeed.

 

Your absolute reference is (must be) the Tanker. Again, it is formation flight.

You will detect any relative speed/position deltas better and earlier than with any instruments.

 

Trust us. Practice without HUD ... once you know how to fly in formation, your life will never be the same. :thumbup:

 

 

That makes sense! Im gonna try it more.

 

 

Actually Im controlling the speed better now. The current bigger problem is sudden variations in climb or dive.

 

Anyway Fighters could use telemetry to mirror those tanker belly lights in the HUD, together with more info it would make air fuel much much more easy.

 

For example: The speed could be attached to FPM and also show tanker speed, also the horizon line could be replaced for the tank wings level. If we already had VVI indication on the HUD it would help a lot too.


Edited by Shadoware
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As said above man - you really need to let the HUD go, just cut if away and be free! Turn it off, down, remove it with a hammer - doesn't matter.

 

You are referencing the huge tanker directly in front of your face. Get a feeling for the overall sight picture while looking at the lights on it's belly. How much of the wings can you see, where are the engines in your peripheral vision, is the yellow stripe running straight or does it slant slightly left/right?

 

Actually seeing the lights is very hard now in VR due to the lighting changes - but TBH I don't even really use them, only if one goes red do I know I need to do something fast - I use my sight picture as reference to hold position...without looking at the HUD once.

You can actually set your bingo page on the DED and mirror the DED onto your HUD to see your total increaseing etc - but I really don't even looking at that - I am looking at the tanker 100% of the time. The faster you can see a change in position the faster you can do something about it, and because you saw it early, the change only needs to be miniscule.

 

Sight picture from Chucks Guide attached....get to know it well, and it won't need to vary much to feel 'wrong'.

That pic is also an excellant example of why not to use the HUD, see how far away from the tanker the HUD is. If you are looking at that then you are not seeing the slight varitions in alignment that you need to notice and correct to hold a precise contact.

Also showing that Bingo page on the HUD I mentioned - glancing down at that is 'do-able', but I would recommend leaving it for now and focus on the tanker 100% of the time.

 

 

I hope all that helps. Just keep practising using the correct technique - and forget the HUD! :thumbup:

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Im grasping the technique to look to the Tanker.

 

I could refuel much fuel but I had to apply a curve to controls too and I disabled wake turbulence for practice.

 

The harder part is to correct climb/dive because sometimes my aircraft tends to react slowly and other times it overreacts too easily.

 

I think is just a matter of practice now on.

 

Thank you for the help!

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wake turb shouldnt be a factor, there is really no significant wake at refueling positions and right now we dont even have aero effects on drogues either.

 

personally i think damped curves is a bad meme because the number one issue with newcomers to aar is grappling with input lag, and retarding inputs with curves only exacerbates it.

if you're making a 'wild overcorrection' i bet it's not because your stick is too sensitive, but rather you don't know when to cease input -- so when the output actually arrives, you get way more than you wanted. pio develops when this effect successively manifests because the new pilot's input frequency is out of synch with the aircraft's output frequency.

 

also dont forget throttle is an altitude controller. try treating aar like landing: power for altitude and pitch for speed, except you're flying a glideslope of 0 degrees.


Edited by probad
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The curve dont really exacerbates the lag between input and react but it changes the controller most sensitivity point and range in the "critic zone".

Every change in the controls is strange at first but Im preferring it this way.

When we open the boom latch the control behavior dont seem much linear anyway.

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Hi!

I could refuel much fuel but I had to apply a curve to controls too and I disabled wake turbulence for practice.

 

If DCS F-16's FLCS is correctly simulated, the build-in curves are already implemented. Adding (or reducing) curves will affect the flight model and flight behavior (same about dead zone).

 

But it is up to you.

 

Regards.

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Hi!

 

 

If DCS F-16's FLCS is correctly simulated, the build-in curves are already implemented. Adding (or reducing) curves will affect the flight model and flight behavior (same about dead zone).

 

But it is up to you.

 

Regards.

 

 

I think any stick you use is already different for original F-16. JetFighter sticks are more stiff and pressure sensitive and dont move so much as pc sticks.

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I think any stick you use is already different for original F-16. JetFighter sticks are more stiff and pressure sensitive and dont move so much as pc sticks.

 

Yes but the 'build-up' Dee-Jay is referring to is the resultant flight surface action of the aircraft, regardless of what 'stick' you use to get the signal there.

 

I personally use a force-sensing sidestick as you describe as 'more stiff and pressure sensitive and don't move so much as pc sticks', and if I add a bunch of curve and deadzone I will still have a bad time flying the F-16.

Controls will be 'not much-not much-too much'! Also the huge reduction in control sensitivity when opening the AAR door is very noticeable using a force-Sense stick as well.

 

At the very least - just set a linear profile, give it a while and see how you go. Ease-up on the death-grip on the stick, wiggle your fingers and toes and relax and you will be much smoother.

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