Giving up on refueling

[irfanahmed1979]

It's not possible for me. I spent a small fortune on this X52 HOTAS because I couldn't get the Warthog. It's all in the video below:

 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

You should try using the KC-135MPRS instead of the KC-130, for starters. And remember that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. 

So, I want you to think about air-to-air tanking as an advanced form of formation flight. So, practice flying in formation with an AI airplane. Just try and maintain the smallest spacing you're comfortable with. 

In addition, for your next few attempts? Stay aware of your arm muscles. Relaxed muscle is responsive muscle; you're probably holding your HOTAS with a white knuckle grip. I did, too, everyone does at first. Manage that throttle so that you're putting just a little bit of slack into the hose and gentle stick movements.

Now, this might seem counterproductive, but for your first hook up? Wait five seconds. After you've held it for five seconds? Look at where the tanker's wing and such are relative to your canopy framing. It can provide some easy to pick up cues on where you need to be.

Finally, don't chase the basket. It bounces, it bucks, it wiggles, it dances, and it can do it a lot better than your aircraft.

If you get frustrated? Take a break, fly something else, or even put a gun burst into the tanker! I have.

Edited September 5, 2022 by MiG21bisFishbedL

[Callsign JoNay]

Zero out your slip.

[irfanahmed1979]

20 minutes ago, MiG21bisFishbedL said:

You should try using the KC-135MPRS instead of the KC-130, for starters. And remember that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. 

So, I want you to think about air-to-air tanking as an advanced form of formation flight. So, practice flying in formation with an AI airplane. Just try and maintain the smallest spacing you're comfortable with. 

In addition, for your next few attempts? Stay aware of your arm muscles. Relaxed muscle is responsive muscle; you're probably holding your HOTAS with a white knuckle grip. I did, too, everyone does at first. Manage that throttle so that you're putting just a little bit of slack into the hose and gentle stick movements.

Now, this might seem counterproductive, but for your first hook up? Wait five seconds. After you've held it for five seconds? Look at where the tanker's wing and such are relative to your canopy framing. It can provide some easy to pick up cues on where you need to be.

Finally, don't chase the basket. It bounces, it bucks, it wiggles, it dances, and it can do it a lot better than your aircraft.

If you get frustrated? Take a break, fly something else, or even put a gun burst into the tanker! I have.

 

Thank you. 

 

P.S. I did gun the tanker once

[kablamoman]

Find your speed and make sure you're trimmed to maintain straight and level.

It sounds funny, but don't focus on the basket. Pick some element of the tanker to focus on as a reference and keep that stationary in your windscreen to maintain your position. If you focus on the basket you'll end up chasing it and oscillating up and down and side to side. Be aware of the basket, but look beyond it to focus on keeping stationary relative to the tanker by keeping whatever reference point you picked stationary.

Creep up slowly into the basket so you don't have to make drastic power changes. Be aware pitch changes will also affect your speed, so yet another reason just to go slowly and be patient.

[WarthogOsl]

Indeed, I tend to focus on the fuel pylon.  You want to be able to see just a bit of the left side of the pylon, and keep it in the upper right corner of the windscreen (this may vary depending on your seat height).  You can watch the basket in your peripheral vision, but don't look right at it.  Typically I'm concentrating on my up/down alignment first, then using my peripheral vision to make small left/right corrections as the basket gets closer.

As you've probably found, staying hooked up can be just as difficult as getting there in the first place, especially if your just stabbing into the basket too fast.  But this will become easier as you get smoother.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

2 hours ago, irfanahmed1979 said:

Thank you. 

 

P.S. I did gun the tanker once

You're welcome. In the end, it takes practice. That's always the secret.

[Torbernite]

If you find it difficult to focus on the basket, you can try anything else like reference on the wing, pod or pylon, and you would find a proper one of your own. Those are common advice for reference but not the only "correct" solution, you may finally find the basket still easiest for yourself, but it's better to have a try when you have trouble with it. In real condition the basket would be disturbed by the airflow, and the initial alignment is commonly done combining with other reference points and only the final correction just before contact (which is usually not very large) is done focusing the basket. 

And remember, by tuning the attitude, roughly speaking you are directly controlling the acceleration, derivative of speed and second derivative of position. And stick movement inputs controls even roughly the derivative of attitude. So timely returning the attitude is needed to correct the offset.

For example, if you see a left offset, we use stick and rudder to create a right bank and turn. But when you get the right component velocity, the attitude should be re-leveled at once (so  to do this, the control input should not be only re-centered but also momently reversed). Your aircraft would use the right component velocity you already have to "float" to the correct position, and you could do the same (reversed) thing to eliminate the component velocity to stop at correct position, just by a left roll ahead of time and then re-level the plane.

It's a very easy logic to understand (as I think most players of flight simulation may have considerable interests for math, physics and engineering), but often forgotten when actually performing a refueling. But at the moment you finally get a successful contact, this logic would be immediately internalized into your mind. Same logic is applied to the speed control.

And in DCS the correct contact speed is not required by itself (in reality the closure rate should be not too little to ensure a firm contact and lock of connector, nor too much to prevent destroying it) so you could try any way you find helpful, like a slow alignment and then decisively push to contact, or a slow closing with correction in overall process.

[IronMike]

Never give up, and know we have all been where you are now.

Look at this video, it gives you very nice visual references you can use for the various tankers.
 

 

[Aja]

Don't give up..., it is about time and muscle memory. It took me about 15 minutes of sweating for two weeks, before I learned to A2A refueling with F-18 and another 4 days with the F-14 which still after dozens and dozens refueling is hard as hell (compare to f-18) to connect for me (when connected, it is easier to hold position). 

My advice:

-use bigger tanker

-dont forget to disable autopilot in F-14 (only assistant should remain active)

-try to slam your probe into basket from distance with speed, it is easier than to hold formation couple of cm behind the basket

-the refueling is harder with low fuel state

-you need to think into future, because of slow spool speed of engine

-use afterburner gate

-try to trim plane for your speed before refueling, but dont trim it during refueling, unless you have confidence in your skill

-when you add power, try to push the stick

-dont use linear input for stick, make it more sensitive in the middle, but dont add any deadzone!

 

BTW, My first succesfull conection, it looks funny how I was thought it is impossible:

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Aja

[irfanahmed1979]

Thanks guys

[Jayhawk1971]

vor einer Stunde schrieb irfanahmed1979:

Thanks guys

How did you arrange your HOTAS around your desk (or "home cockpit")?

I ask because you can make your life magnitudes easier if you have a way to rest your "stick"-arm on something. 

For example:

I used to fly with both throttle and stick just sitting right and left of me on my desk, which was fine for FBW aircraft, I guess. But looking back, I was really prone to overcorrecting on my stick inputs.

Since then (about a year ago) I have moved my stick to a center mount setup (like in the real jet), and have it low enough so that I can rest my elbow and lower arm on my upper right thigh. I am not steering with my arm at all for 98% of the time (except maybe in a wild dogfight), but only move the stick with the wrist and most of the time only the fingers. That will really help smooth out your stick movements.

Also, why does that advice sound so unintentionally naughty? 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

8 hours ago, irfanahmed1979 said:

Thanks guys

 

[Uxi]

I didn't think I'd ever get it down but I did.  Then I didn't think I'd get the A down... until I did.  Now I do it at night, sometimes with a human RIO in the back and the rest of the squadron....