Suggested AAR procedure improvement

[El Chapo]

Hello, 

 

Would it be possible to improve slightly interactions with tankers in order to improve AAR experience? 

 

It would be great if we could ask the tanker for a given amount of fuel (e.g. I need 4klbs or I need a top off) before refueling. 

Indeed, some aircraft have no way to know the amount of fuel they have received (e.g. M2000 once internal fuel is full), and in any case nobody likes giving an eye inside the cockpit while refueling. 

 

The tanker could also give us the amount of fuel that has been given once we are ready to leave, so that we know how much fuel is on board precisely. 

E.g. if I'm refueling on the M2000 but I'm disconnecting before I'm full, I have no way to know my new fuel unless the tanker gives me the fuel. 

 

We could make a rough estimate by ourselves if we knew the approximate fuel flow of the tankers. 

Normal fuel flow is 2klbs/min I believe, but some aircraft accept only 1klbs/min. 

Asking for the correct fuel flow is sometimes done when refueling on a foreign tanker to avoid damages to the fuel system... 

 

Thank you! 

Edited June 26, 2021 by Габихан

[Ignition]

AAR needs a lot of improvements, I hope ED will focus on this after the ATC overhaul.

[sirrah]

53 minutes ago, Ignition said:

AAR needs a lot of improvements, I hope ED will focus on this after the ATC overhaul.

Indeed

Proper formation procedures are also needed for instance

[Tank50us]

30 minutes ago, sirrah said:

Indeed

Proper formation procedures are also needed for instance

 

Hell, the tankers should be talking to us the whole time from the moment we call them, to the moment we leave formation with them. One viable option to solve this would be to allow humans to sit in the operators seat and manually control the whole procedure (similar to the SCMs LSO slot), or, allow some visual indicators that are client side only (IE, if someone has it turned off, they won't see it if someone else has it on). Such indicators could greatly assist newer pilots who just don't have the hundreds of hours per month to dedicate to flying virtual fighter jets.

[Mars Exulte]

1 hour ago, Tank50us said:

 

Hell, the tankers should be talking to us the whole time from the moment we call them, to the moment we leave formation with them.

  Afaik, tankers fly their track, hooking up is the pilot's problem. I've never heard much communication in videos, and according to several rl pilots they also indicated relative silence.

 

1 hour ago, Tank50us said:

Such indicators could greatly assist newer pilots who just don't have the hundreds of hours per month to dedicate to flying virtual fighter jets.

  It's formation flight, literally one of the most basic, simplistic skills of aviation and one of the very first things most pilots learn. It does not take ''hundreds of hours per month''. It takes a youtube video and a half dozen tries.

[Tank50us]

7 minutes ago, Mars Exulte said:

It's formation flight, literally one of the most basic, simplistic skills of aviation and one of the very first things most pilots learn. It does not take ''hundreds of hours per month''. It takes a youtube video and a half dozen tries.

 

Not everyone learns that way though. You can show me a million videos how to disassemble and reassemble an AK47, and odds are, I'll still mess up. Give me the instructions and let me do it myself, and I nail it in two tries.

I've tried watching videos on AAR, and I simply cannot do it as shown in the video, and I have maybe a couple hours where I'm not either working or sleeping, and most of that is dedicated in some way to one or the other. When I talk about people who don't have hundreds of hours to dedicate to learning how to AAR, I'm not talking out my tail-pipe, I'm talking from experience. The hours and hours of practice that people dedicate to learning it and perfecting it? Dead serious, not everyone has that. So maybe some visual aids for those who don't have the hours and hours and hours to dedicate, as well as those who don't have the $5,000 sim pits with VR, can at least get a little bit of help from ED learning this skill. You don't need it? Fine, don't use it. Turn the aids off. But for those that do need the help, they should have it available should they want to use it.

[Furiz]

3 hours ago, Tank50us said:

can at least get a little bit of help from ED learning this skill. You don't need it? Fine, don't use it. Turn the aids off. But for those that do need the help, they should have it available should they want to use it.

 

This thread is about comms and procedure of AAR, not your AAR cheat. No one has hundreds of hours to practice AAR, yet so many have done it, you can do it too, patience and practice. good luck.

 

Yep comms imporvement would be great addition to AAR, it would bring up the immersion by 500%.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Furiz

[SharpeXB]

8 hours ago, Tank50us said:

One viable option to solve this would be to allow humans to sit in the operators seat and manually control the whole procedure

Really this would be too boring for any real player to want to do. It’s already a “problem” that in the multi-crew planes like the F-14 everyone want to be the pilot and nobody wants to be the RIO. And the RIO is arguably a more exciting role. And having a human player as the boom operator wouldn’t make AAR any easier. 

Edited June 27, 2021 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Really this would be too boring for any real player to want to do.

Not really, no.

Just because you would be bored by it doesn't mean that this extends to an and all arbitrary hypothetical "real players". It's already pretty trivial to find RIOs, too.

 

It would be even easier in this case since it could arguably be a side-job for whomever is doing GCI and ATC duty.

 

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

And having a human player as the boom operator wouldn’t make AAR any easier.

Considering how vastly better they'd be at the job than the AI, it most certainly would, even before you take any communication aspects into account.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Tippis

[Exorcet]

9 hours ago, Tank50us said:

 

One viable option to solve this would be to allow humans to sit in the operators seat and manually control the whole procedure (similar to the SCMs LSO slot)

Honestly CA should be expanded so that a player can sit anywhere. Tanker, AWACS, Control Tower, whatever.

 

As far as refueling improvements go, some nice ones would be more visible tanker lights, better physics (including boom and drogue as solid objects), selectable fuel amount, and preset orbits for different aircraft that can be switched between while in the mission. For the purposes of mission making and debugging it would be nice if the F10 map showed you how much fuel a tanker (or any plane) has remaining.

[SharpeXB]

Here’s another suggestion. How about having the Tanker TACAN available on the F10 map or briefing…

[Wrcknbckr]

9 hours ago, Tank50us said:

 

Not everyone learns that way though. You can show me a million videos how to disassemble and reassemble an AK47, and odds are, I'll still mess up. Give me the instructions and let me do it myself, and I nail it in two tries.
 

 

Buy the Tomcat and experience how utterly useless the RIO's instructions are. You are in control and you should know where to go.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Wrcknbckr

[Exorcet]

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Here’s another suggestion. How about having the Tanker TACAN available on the F10 map or briefing…

I've gotten into the habit of adding this to my briefings myself, but that's a good idea.

 

Really the entire briefing page could use an overhaul, it could be its own thread.