A2A Refueling - getting there sloooooowly :)

[lwalter]

After many years, I'm still not able to do A2A refueling.

The best I could get was the endless "return pre-contact".... until yesterday, when I finally got a "cleared for contact".

Getting closer and probably too excited about this new milestone, I managed to get my A-10 nose plugged into something for refueling.... but not the right place I guess  Maybe someday, I'll get it right.

null

[SharpeXB]

Keep calm and carry on…

[Py]

On 12/19/2022 at 9:34 PM, lwalter said:

After many years, I'm still not able to do A2A refueling.

The best I could get was the endless "return pre-contact".... until yesterday, when I finally got a "cleared for contact".

Getting closer and probably too excited about this new milestone, I managed to get my A-10 nose plugged into something for refueling.... but not the right place I guess  Maybe someday, I'll get it right.

Don't stress about the fuelling part - just practice flying in close formation first until you feel like you can control your position smoothly.

Then the refuelling part is just choosing the right position (watch the fuselage/engines, don't focus on the boom).

Good luck!

[Lange_666]

On 12/19/2022 at 1:34 PM, lwalter said:

After many years, I'm still not able to do A2A refueling. Maybe someday, I'll get it right.

The F-16 (don't know about other aircraft) cheats a bit by changing stick input curves when the refuel door opens and sets this back to default when it closes.
I didn't know about this and found out the hard way because i always backed off a bit after refueling, rolled 180° upside down and then pulled the stick to make a half loop. Sometimes i could not manage that loop and i would crash into the ground until i found out that the stick input changed with the refuel door open. With the door open, i was not able to make the half loop, with the door closed i even had plenty of room left. It was a bit of an A HA moment.
Also, if you're using a standard Warthog stick base, friction could be a bit of problem for precise movement.

Since i use Target Script for my stick profiles and since it's possible to change axis behavior with the script, i added the same principle for each of my aircraft profiles, making controlling the airplane a lot easier when refueling. I also set a LED to let me see in what axis state i'm in for in case i should forget. For the moment i have 3 curves.
You could also integrate this at the same time with open/close of the refuel door/probe.

 

SEQ(  Change stick axis behaviour - open the sequence
        CHAIN(
            EXEC( // curve 1
                "SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYX, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0); SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYY, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0);"
            ),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT+LED2),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT-LED4)
            ),
        CHAIN(
            EXEC( // curve 2
                "SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYX, 0, 0, 0, 4, 0); SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYY, 0, 0, 0, 4, 0);"
            ),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT+LED4),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT-LED2)
            ),
        CHAIN(
            EXEC( // reset to normal
                "SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYX, 0, 0, 0 ,0, 0); SetSCurve(&Joystick, JOYY, 0, 0, 0 ,0, 0);"
            ),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT-LED2),
            LED(&Throttle, LED_ONOFF, LED_CURRENT-LED4)
        )), //close the Sequence

Edited December 22, 2022 by Lange_666