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Community A-4E-C v2.2 (October 2023)


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Thank you, plusnine, I usually bind only the real aircraft HOTAS functions when the module have a clickable cockpit, just added a few things for the A-4E (like the chaff/flare dispender), I updated Saturday and, so far, everything seems to be working normally.

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Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

i7-8700K 32GB 2060(6GB) 27"@1080p TM Hawg HOTAS TPR TIR5 SD-XL 2xSD+ HC Bravo button/pot box

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1 hour ago, scoobie said:

Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

You should be able to set it to flight refuel, however if you are on the 2.0.0 version there was a bug which prevented you from using the fuel after you set it to flight refuel. Try upgrading to the v2.0.1 version if you are having issues.

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2 hours ago, scoobie said:

Hi. Can you actually refuel drop tanks in flight?

I can fill the internal tanks no problem, but drop tanks remain dry forever, no matter how long I'm hanging from the basket. Silence, no transfer. Tanks under pylons 2 and 4. "DROP TANKS" switch set to "FLIGHT REFUEL". What am I doing wrong?

There are two switches you have to operate to refuel the drop tanks, one is the one you're referring to, on the left console, right behind the throttle; the second one, the "Fuel Trans" switch, is on the right console, near the end of the cockpit, behind the MCL controls: it's a two position switch, you have to put it in the forward "bypass" position; once you have the "Drop tank" switch in the "flight refuel" position and the "Fuel trans" switch in the bypass position, you can refuel the drop tanks.

Screen_220316_214432.png

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51 minutes ago, Gianky said:

There are two switches you have to operate to refuel the drop tanks, one is the one you're referring to, on the left console, right behind the throttle; the second one, the "Fuel Trans" switch, is on the right console, near the end of the cockpit, behind the MCL controls: it's a two position switch, you have to put it in the forward "bypass" position; once you have the "Drop tank" switch in the "flight refuel" position and the "Fuel trans" switch in the bypass position, you can refuel the drop tanks.

Screen_220316_214432.png

You don't actually want to enable the bypass otherwise the fuel flows from the external tanks straight into the fuselage tank skipping the wing tank. You should leave this switch off so the fuel is pumped into the external tanks and gets forced into the wing tank the normal way.

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(I am on v2.0.1)

Thanks, guys, for reasurring me that the drop tank AAR does work - thanks to this I kept pushing.

Finally it worked! I must have messed something up about my Stream Deck, which I normally use for AAR switches (among other things).
This time, for a test, I clicked the in-cockpit switches with the mouse (instead of pressing Stream Deck buttons) and bingo - everything went okay, drop tanks filled!

It's seldom the case that Stream Deck bites me, hence it wasn't my suspect. I thought I might have botched the mod's installation on my PC or that it's a bug in the very mod etc.

Thanks again, I'll invesigate the problem on my side, but at this time I know my Scooter is 100% healthy 🙂

 

i7-8700K 32GB 2060(6GB) 27"@1080p TM Hawg HOTAS TPR TIR5 SD-XL 2xSD+ HC Bravo button/pot box

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3 hours ago, JNelson said:

You don't actually want to enable the bypass otherwise the fuel flows from the external tanks straight into the fuselage tank skipping the wing tank. You should leave this switch off so the fuel is pumped into the external tanks and gets forced into the wing tank the normal way.

I hadn't try it in 2.0.1, but that's how it worked in 2.0 and how the 2.0 manual tells you to do it.

EDIT: NAVAIR 01-40AVC-1 (15 November 1968 edition, changed 1 March 1977), page 1-20, under the paragraph called "Fuel transfer bypass switch" says «Air refueling of the droptanks and fuselage fuel tank (bypassing the wing tanks) is possible by placing the DROP TANKS switch in the FLIGHT REFUEL position, in addition to placing the fuel transfer bypass switch in the FUEL TRANS BYPASS position». Not sure if that was the normal procedure to refuel the drop tanks, I didn't read the whole NATOPS, but I assumed it was, since it's the same that was reported in the A-4E-C 2.0 manual.


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Yeah, I read it in NATOPS, too. I think it's a trap. They only tell you how you can fill drop tanks when (and only when) your wing tank is leaking etc. (battle damage or whatever) and you don't want to push fuel into it. This paragraph has a vertical bar next to it, which means it is an addition to the text in the manual's newest edition. So someone came and threw in this paragraph, apparently without careful reading of the surrounding text. AFAICR there's not a single word about in-flight refueling in the surrounding text, and suddenly you stumble upon this paragraph, which may make you think "okay, so this is how you AAR the plane!". A trap. They could have been more careful about wording, i.e. write anything about AAR in general and only then add a note on what you should do when you need to skip wing tank during AAR.

 


Edited by scoobie

i7-8700K 32GB 2060(6GB) 27"@1080p TM Hawg HOTAS TPR TIR5 SD-XL 2xSD+ HC Bravo button/pot box

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7 hours ago, scoobie said:

Yeah, I read it in NATOPS, too. I think it's a trap. They only tell you how you can fill drop tanks when (and only when) your wing tank is leaking etc. (battle damage or whatever) and you don't want to push fuel into it. This paragraph has a vertical bar next to it, which means it is an addition to the text in the manual's newest edition. So someone came and threw in this paragraph, apparently without careful reading of the surrounding text. AFAICR there's not a single word about in-flight refueling in the surrounding text, and suddenly you stumble upon this paragraph, which may make you think "okay, so this is how you AAR the plane!". A trap. They could have been more careful about wording, i.e. write anything about AAR in general and only then add a note on what you should do when you need to skip wing tank during AAR.

 

 

The trouble with old manuals is that 99% of the time they are made of scanned images and cannot be searched... so I used the Hornet NATOPS as a reference (structure of the manual can't be changed that much, can it?) and I found the relevant section on the A-4E NATOPS to which I was referring above.

Air to air refueling is in Section 4 (Flight characteristics and flight procedures), page 4-22 and it does say «if the drop tanks are to be fueled, the drop tanks switch must be positioned at FLIGHT REFUEL. Fuel flow will then be through the probe to the drop tanks, wing tank and fuselage tank simultaneously». If you look at figure 4-8 this subsection seems to be referred to buddy tanking, but I'm guessing the procedure for the receiving aircraft is the same regardless of what the tanker is.

So, yeah, I'd say you're right, section one when describing the fuel transfer switch refers only to the hypothesis of wing fuel tank damage, though the wording might create some doubt if you don't know the whole NATOPS.

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On 3/17/2022 at 12:50 AM, Gianky said:

I hadn't try it in 2.0.1, but that's how it worked in 2.0 and how the 2.0 manual tells you to do it.

EDIT: NAVAIR 01-40AVC-1 (15 November 1968 edition, changed 1 March 1977), page 1-20, under the paragraph called "Fuel transfer bypass switch" says «Air refueling of the droptanks and fuselage fuel tank (bypassing the wing tanks) is possible by placing the DROP TANKS switch in the FLIGHT REFUEL position, in addition to placing the fuel transfer bypass switch in the FUEL TRANS BYPASS position». Not sure if that was the normal procedure to refuel the drop tanks, I didn't read the whole NATOPS, but I assumed it was, since it's the same that was reported in the A-4E-C 2.0 manual.

 

"(bypassing the wing tanks)"

Is the key point., the bypass switch, as I said, just causes the fuel to be fed from the externals directly to the fuselage tank in case of leak. The fuel system works the same in both 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 appart from that minor fix to the flight refuel switch getting stuck. Plusnine made a minor mistake in the manual for 2.0.0, it should be updated in 2.0.1.

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No matter how many times I reinstall the newest mod version 2.0.1 the cockpit becomes unclickable as soon as I try to start a mission. This includes the instant missions that came with the plane for example the "cold start" one.

I have deleted the joystick configs eachtime before reinstalling, I reset the button and axis allocation each time from scratch. Who can help?

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2 hours ago, brn1976 said:

No matter how many times I reinstall the newest mod version 2.0.1 the cockpit becomes unclickable as soon as I try to start a mission. This includes the instant missions that came with the plane for example the "cold start" one.

I have deleted the joystick configs eachtime before reinstalling, I reset the button and axis allocation each time from scratch. Who can help?

Do you have the latest updated version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable ? I don't know what else to tell you.

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59 minutes ago, Calabrone said:

Do you have the latest updated version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable ? I don't know what else to tell you.

Thanks for the reply. I do, I just reinstalled it, same as before. Can't click anything in the cockpit, since I adjusted the axis controlls.

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4 hours ago, brn1976 said:

Thanks for the reply. I do, I just reinstalled it, same as before. Can't click anything in the cockpit, since I adjusted the axis controlls.

Have you checked in the Windows properties to see if the peripheral devices are working properly? (I assume you followed the installation instructions to the letter). I have a T16000M, TWCS and TWS pedalboard and everything works fine.

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Thanks to the creators for this excellent package.  I wonder if I could get some advice on an issue.  I've gone back the Beta for carrier ops (without the NWS I just cannot get lined up with the catapult, been trying since Jan and have given up.) Everything works except the comms. In "Easy Comm" mode the primary selections appears in white, while one sub menu in everything is greyed out and I don not get any responses form ATC, tankers, wingman, etc.  AirBoss comms (easy mode) work fine, but I assume that has nothing to do with the A4....

If I switch to "realistic comm" mode, all menu and sub-menu comm items are no longer greyed out, but still no responses. 

I tried proper radio freqs in both instances and same result  

The current version does not exhibit any of this, comms work as advertised using either method.  (I use this version for shore ops, I can manage getting somewhat lined up on a runway eventually.)

My question is: for the Beta (ver 2.0.0-beta-5.1) does "Easy Communications" mode  function for air-air and air-ground radio comms or should I be using "realistic".  I'll  continue troubleshooting based on that.....

Thanks.

 

See attached:

 

 

A4comms1.PNG

A4easycomm.PNG

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14 hours ago, Calabrone said:

Have you checked in the Windows properties to see if the peripheral devices are working properly? (I assume you followed the installation instructions to the letter). I have a T16000M, TWCS and TWS pedalboard and everything works fine.

My peripherals work just fine. It is the cockpit buttons I cannot click on. It's like flying a FC3 plane.

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4 hours ago, Reccelow said:

Thanks to the creators for this excellent package.  I wonder if I could get some advice on an issue.  I've gone back the Beta for carrier ops (without the NWS I just cannot get lined up with the catapult, been trying since Jan and have given up.) Everything works except the comms. In "Easy Comm" mode the primary selections appears in white, while one sub menu in everything is greyed out and I don not get any responses form ATC, tankers, wingman, etc.  AirBoss comms (easy mode) work fine, but I assume that has nothing to do with the A4....

If I switch to "realistic comm" mode, all menu and sub-menu comm items are no longer greyed out, but still no responses. 

I tried proper radio freqs in both instances and same result  

The current version does not exhibit any of this, comms work as advertised using either method.  (I use this version for shore ops, I can manage getting somewhat lined up on a runway eventually.)

My question is: for the Beta (ver 2.0.0-beta-5.1) does "Easy Communications" mode  function for air-air and air-ground radio comms or should I be using "realistic".  I'll  continue troubleshooting based on that.....

Thanks.

 

See attached:

 

 

A4comms1.PNG

A4easycomm.PNG

ensure you are using the actual Radio Microphone Push-to-Talk binding, not the generic comms binding.

You can find the binding in the communications subsection or the throttle grip subsection of the control bindings. The binding and its physical location on the throttle handle are provided in detail on pages 1-2 and 6-1 of the current release's kneeboard (RADIO and STICK & THROTTLE, respectively).

 

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6 hours ago, brn1976 said:

My peripherals work just fine. It is the cockpit buttons I cannot click on. It's like flying a FC3 plane.

Stupid question, just to check for the basics: can you click the cockpit in other full fidelity modules? Have you checked if the mouse pointer is visible in the cockpit? Is there any chance you disabled it inadvertently pressing LAlt + C?

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15 hours ago, Gianky said:

Stupid question, just to check for the basics: can you click the cockpit in other full fidelity modules? Have you checked if the mouse pointer is visible in the cockpit? Is there any chance you disabled it inadvertently pressing LAlt + C?

Gianky I can't understand how they have all these problems. Since the A4E came out I have always installed all the updates and never had any problems.

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