HB F-4E Air Refueling?

[Kirk66]

Alpha is totally correct; AAR in DCS (in VR, flat screens just plain suck) is pretty easy and actually fun; IRL it's harder and nobody honestly enjoys it but you do what you gotta do. There is a Mover video on an F-16 fatal accident at Shaw AFB a few years ago that covers this pretty well.

On the boom, at night, in a turn, in a cloud, with all your friends watching - stress, what's that?  "Relax, wiggle your toes, stop trying to squeeze the trim button off the top of the stick, just fly formation...OFFLOAD COMPLETE...thank god - disconnect!"

Then again, hanging out in the observation position on the KC's wingtip watching your buds take their turn flailing around or being abused by a rookie boomer ("JUST STICK IT IN THE HOLE ALREADY!") did somewhat make up for it.

A lot more fun and relaxing in DCS.

[Temetre]

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Kirk66:

Alpha is totally correct; AAR in DCS (in VR, flat screens just plain suck) is pretty easy and actually fun;

Its "easy" if you did it a hundred times, enjoy it and exactly know what to look for. Pretty much everything difficult gets easy when you get enough experience. Idk why people dont understand that in video games?

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Kirk66:

IRL it's harder and nobody honestly enjoys it but you do what you gotta do.

Eh, Ive heard a lot of people say its way easier in reality.

And it makes a lot more sense, considering most of your sense are missing when playing 2D, and in VR as well.

[Dragon1-1]

It goes a different way in different planes. People posting here about their experiences were AF Phantom drivers, while most people I heard "it's easier IRL" from flew the Viper, a few were Navy Hornet jocks. I suspect that the Viper smooths out many things that complicate AAR and which DCS doesn't really simulate. Hornet and the F-14 use the basket instead of the boom, and from what I heard, the basket is easier to use IRL. All this probably means the relative difficulty of doing this varies across aircraft. Some are easier IRL, some in the sim.

And yes, it gets easier with practice, like anything, but the difference is, it doesn't just get easier, it gets easy. Like riding a bike, once you get it, you got it.

[Kirk66]

And some of this could be what kind of joystick/throttle/rudder pedal setup you are using in DCS, as well as VR vs flatsceen.

Trying to AAR with the keyboard? Probably not a good idea (but IDK, never tried it!). I just know that with my Virpil stick and throttle, the M-2000 is pretty easy to refuel, and using my FSSB F-16 sidestick, the Viper is also pretty easy to get into the contact position and take on fuel. YMMV! 

AAR (and any close formation) really stresses being able to make very small corrections to stay on the boom or in the basket. Flailing around against a Warthog spring and stiction without an extension would definitely make it harder. Not impossible, just harder.

[Dragon1-1]

That is a major part of it, I've experienced it moving from CH to Winwing. It's not that I couldn't AAR with CH (although it took a lot of practice and a lot of effort due to a deadzone and a rather strong spring), but the more precise WW stick makes catching the basket a breeze, and boom AAR isn't too hard with it, either. More importantly, the Winwing throttle is a very precise instrument, the CH throttle slides and has a rather short throw, while Winwing is a pair of big levers. The latter is far easier to operate precisely, unlike CH which made it easy to overcontrol the jet fore and aft, especially something with a slow spooling engine (my AAR experience much improved after they fixed the Hornet's excessive engine lag). IMO, a throttle quadrant (not just a slider) with a long throw and no sticktion is probably more important for AAR than the choice of stick, although of course having a good one helps a lot.

Still, I did it with CH, on a 2D screen, in the other sim. I didn't use it much in practice, and I wasn't too good at it, but I practiced until I could do it. It's all a matter of practice and being comfortable with the controls.

[Bananabrai]

On 5/21/2023 at 5:09 PM, Kirk66 said:

Alpha is totally correct; AAR in DCS (in VR, flat screens just plain suck) is pretty easy and actually fun; IRL it's harder and nobody honestly enjoys it but you do what you gotta do. There is a Mover video on an F-16 fatal accident at Shaw AFB a few years ago that covers this pretty well.

On the boom, at night, in a turn, in a cloud, with all your friends watching - stress, what's that?  "Relax, wiggle your toes, stop trying to squeeze the trim button off the top of the stick, just fly formation...OFFLOAD COMPLETE...thank god - disconnect!"

Then again, hanging out in the observation position on the KC's wingtip watching your buds take their turn flailing around or being abused by a rookie boomer ("JUST STICK IT IN THE HOLE ALREADY!") did somewhat make up for it.

A lot more fun and relaxing in DCS.

Might be air frame specific experience?

Most pilots I heard, say it is easier IRL, same with learning to land a plane, as you have the complete package of feelings and correct view and not like on the computer a 2D Track IR or not perfect to real world VR view.
But that were also probe fliers, mostly Tornado and Typhoon guys.
 

[Alpha]

No, it isn´t airframe specific. I have flown civilian GA airplanes, different military Fighter Aircraft, pretty big civilian Airliners as well as their simulated Versions (professional and recreational/PC-based ones): So far I have never ever experienced any Simulation that is more than a good rendition of certain aspects of real Flying, sorry. It doesn´t really matter if you´re looking at Cessna-type-of-aircraft which you "master eyes closed in front of some Home Computer" and then fly for real at your local field or an Airliner you train on in a professional, full-motion simulator and then fly for real or you enjoy DCS in VR and compare that to real-world-flying in a Fighter Jet - it doesn´t get beyond a certain percentage of the real deal. There´s thousands of impressions, factors, nuances, feelings, "there is no restart-mission if you hit something" etc in real life. 

 

Best analogy I can come up with (sts) is that even the most high-res, 3D "Visual pleasure for adults on some screen" is faaaaar from the experience with a real human being    That´s about the distance we´re talking here - which still leaves a lot of fun in DCS, don´t get me wrong! Just don´t forget about the huge gap between Reality / Real world flying and Simulation / Computer-based-Entertainment.

[Dragon1-1]

5 hours ago, Alpha said:

No, it isn´t airframe specific.

Except we're not talking about the quality of simulation. We're talking about ease of performing a particular maneuver (AAR) in the sim versus IRL. And that is very much airframe specific. On some aircraft, it's harder to AAR than IRL, and on others, it's the other way around. Flying in a sim, as you say, is different than flying IRL. This makes somethings harder and others easier.

Of course you can't simulate some things, G forces in particular are pretty much impossible to get completely right, because physics. Still, you can get close, and DCS does just that. Highly useful when the fighter jet you want to ride in no longer has any flying examples. I admit, I'd love to, one day, save up for one of those "ride the Phantom IRL" rides. I won't get to fight MiGs, strafe trucks or drop snake and nape in it (maybe if I beg the IP hard enough we can at least roll in on something and pretend ), but according to those who flew, it's still great. I sure hope those Phantoms will still fly by the time I have access to that much money (the flight itself, plus a ride to US from the EU and back, with all associated costs). Meanwhile, I'm going to have fun flying the HB's Phantom for much, much less.

[Alpha]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

On some aircraft, it's harder to AAR than IRL, and on others, it's the other way around.

I´m curious: In your experience - with which aircraft do you find it harder to do AAR in the sim compared to IRL?  Because that statement obviously holds very limited value without having experience with the real one.

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Alpha

[Dragon1-1]

It's not my experience, I'm just telling what actual Viper jocks told me, which I clearly stated upthread. Take a guess about which aircraft they might've been talking about. Mostly on the other sim forum, where it's often been said that if you can AAR the Viper on a 2D screen, you'd ace it in the real jet. If you're willing to suffer through the other sim forum's atrocious design, you can go and argue with them personally. However, I heard it from enough different people, and with a detailed enough explanation as to why, as to consider that it's probably true. Did you fly the Viper, so you're qualified to say otherwise (I suspect not, Viper drivers are rarely satisfied just saying they flew "fighter aircraft", so to speak )? 

[Alpha]

No, I never flew the viper. But I think you take them too literally. Of course everybody needs some time to adjust to PC-Hardware, 1G-only-environment etc - which is why the irl learned mechanics don't work right away. That's normal and leads to "Dude, having trouble here which I don't have in the real jet". That doesn't mean the real aar is anyhow easier - just a different thing. 

 

The step to pretending the jump from a known PC-environment to a real aircraft is anything but a way bigger and harder switch is pretty obviously a misconception. You can be as proficient in dcs as you want - you'll never "ace" real life Aar without learning it irl before. There's some benefit from training in dcs, switchology and maybe sight pictures - but that's it. It's a bit like saying "drive need for speed on a PC and you'll be able to drive a fast car well" - there is a tiny amount of truth and a huuuge amount of exaggeration in that sentence and it's mostly said for entertainment purposes.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Alpha

[Dragon1-1]

On 10/14/2023 at 10:59 PM, Alpha said:

No, I never flew the viper. But I think you take them too literally. Of course everybody needs some time to adjust to PC-Hardware, 1G-only-environment etc - which is why the irl learned mechanics don't work right away. That's normal and leads to "Dude, having trouble here which I don't have in the real jet". That doesn't mean the real aar is anyhow easier - just a different thing.

Tell me how, then, a Heatblur F-14 SME caught the 3-wire in the sim, on this first try after flying the Tomcat about 20 years ago. This on an aircraft much harder to fly than the Viper is. You appear to be overstating the difficulty of transitioning from sim to the real thing and vice versa (or maybe it's unusually hard for you). Hand-eye coordination, sight pictures (big thing in AAR) and switchology all transfer. This is particularly true on an FBW aircraft such as the Viper, which basically does not even require trim inputs in normal flying (something that most pilots would find implausible).

You can say what you want, but I'll take input from multiple actual Viper SMEs involved in flight sim development over a pilot of a completely different aircraft type, and from an European country (I found European military types tend to be rather more dour and serious than their US counterparts, that gave you away ), at that. The guys I heard it from were not amateurs or unfamiliar with simming and its peculiarities. According to them, AAR is not particularly difficult in the real Viper, anyway.

Also, DCS is more like iRacing (only with less extortive pricing), not Need For Speed, the equivalent of which would be Ace Combat. And yes, the top F-1 simmer (not sure which sim) was once invited for a real drive. Supposedly, he clocked some impressive lap times at first, but he didn't have the endurance to keep it up for as long as a real F-1 driver would (what with not being used to G forces). So I think you're not giving simming quite enough credit in general.

[Alpha]

You misunderstood.  It's not about real life to Sim, that sme success doesn't surprise me. It's all about your misconception of the other way round: Sim to Real Life  

 

If you really think handling AAR in any Sim makes anybody without RL Training "ace real life AAR" (in any jet),  you're just warping reality. 

 

As you clearly stated you have no experience in a real military fighter, so you can't do a comparison. I have,  Kirk has, all my fighter pilot buddies visiting me and enjoying a round of DCS have - and there's no discussion about one thing being a (enjoyable) Home Computer Game/Sim and a huge Gap to real Life Flying. Also you misunderstand my EL Buddies saying stuff like "Viper is so easy to AAR", etc. It's from their point of view, they don't seriously think anybody without real life experience in fast Jets could do it without seriously endangering everybody. We tend to downplay things to the public,  it's a mistake to take that literally.

 

Don't take it personal, but: In the end this is really not a discussion we can have as you don't even know what you're comparing. If you think you could hack it in real life because of dcs - do so. I've had a 10year old kid in my Cockpit yesterday after the flight and he seriously thought he could learn flying that airliner from memorizing some buttons. We say "absolutely", but we're not seriously believing it for a second. If you do - go ahead, I don't care.  I've seen enough real world experienced GA and Airline Pilots struggle landing/handling a fighter in our professional,  military full motion sims. I've seen enough people struggle in professional airline sims despite gazillions of MSFS Hours. You can believe those who actually know what they're talking about - or live a phantasy. Just don't tell anybody with RL Jet Experience,  he will laugh.  

 

And speaking of difference due to me being from Europe (did my military Jet Pilot Training in the US): I'm just phrasing it more politely than my American buddies would do...

Edited October 16, 2023 by Alpha

[Dragon1-1]

21 hours ago, Alpha said:

You misunderstood.  It's not about real life to Sim, that sme success doesn't surprise me. It's all about your misconception of the other way round: Sim to Real Life  

Well, there's the story of the DCS helo pilot who went to RL helo training (on a Robinson R22, at that) and basically breezed through it, to his instructor's amazement. It's out there on Apache or Huey forum. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but it would be a pretty solid evidence against your statements, seeing as Viper, unlike an R22, isn't actively trying to kill you, and is in fact said to be remarkably easy to fly for such a high performance fighter. "Controlling the [...] real F-16 is really not very difficult", said by a certain Pete Bonnani (quote redacted for forum rules, it's in a manual he wrote), and if he's not a Viper authority for you, I don't know who is. 

Again, I only stated what other people told me. My point was: real pilots who flew the Viper found AAR easier in the jet than in the sim. You have, so far, not said anything that would refute that point. Them literally saying "if you can AAR on a flat screen you'd ace it IRL" might have been an exaggeration, or just come out of a subjective feeling of frustration after spending a lot of time trying to learn AAR without the benefit of depth perception, and using home peripherals and not the vastly superior controls on the real thing. Or maybe it's really that easy in the Viper. You're free to argue that with them, on a forum or over shots of Weed in the O-club bar, I don't care, because that was not only not the point I was arguing, it was not even my own statement, just a quote from someone I consider an authority.

You seem to be arguing a position that a task cannot be harder in the sim than it is in the real jet. I say that there are some tasks that are harder to learn when you lack this seat of pants feeling and, when not in VR, depth perception. I'm awaiting convincing arguments that it, in fact, isn't so. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Dragon1-1

[Kalasnkova74]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Well, there's the story of the DCS helo pilot who went to RL helo training (on a Robinson R22, at that) and basically breezed through it, to his instructor's amazement. It's out there on Apache or Huey forum. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but it would be a pretty solid evidence against your statements, seeing as Viper, unlike an R22, isn't actively trying to kill you, and is in fact said to be remarkably easy to fly for such a high performance fighter.

 

An R-22 is not the same as a combat fighter jet at all. I have a whopping 0 hours in a Viper or Phantom, but I know enough to understand a flight sim -no matter how comprehensive- is not the same as the real thing. And DCS - high dollar setups excluded- is a video game we play on a PC monitor or VR headset, not a full featured manufacturer flight simulator with no deviations from the actual jet cockpit besides being attached to the ground.

 

If playing a game = real world training, the USAF would have saved millions and shut down the T-38 pipeline a long time ago. Same goes for NATO countries that still pay for real world flight training you propose isn’t needed. 

[Dragon1-1]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

An R-22 is not the same as a combat fighter jet at all.

And I never said it was. It is merely evidence that motor skills (which is what AAR is about) transfer both ways. Stop putting words in my mouth. I even put the actual point I wanted to argue in bold. Could you please argue with that instead of with a strawman?

Also, FYI, the T-38 and so on does not teach flying. They do that on a T-6, including formations. And yes, they do very extensive sim courses before letting the trainees anywhere near an actual tanker. Also, how do you think pilots get qualified on 5th generation jets, none of which have a two seat version? There are many reasons why real world training is still needed, and most of them have nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to do AAR in the sim versus the real thing.

And finally, yes, USAF at least is moving towards VR to supplant at least some of their sim rigs, so they clearly think playing a game is worth their money and time. There are some things you can't quite teach in the sim (notably anything involving Gs, so all combat), but there are also many that you can.

[Alpha]

Of course Sim can be harder than Real life - but only for those, who can do it in real Life and find it comfortably easy there. Of course it is "harder" for _them_ in a Game - as it´s a different thing. It´s faulty logic to interpret this as a statement like "if you can do it in a Game/Sim, you can do it in real life". 

 

Also a quote like "FYI, the T-38 and so on does not teach flying. " is another huge misunderstanding of Aviation and Gaming you´re showing. There´s quite a reason why T-38 starts with a Contact Phase and why almost everything done in T-6 is done again in T-38. A high performance Jet flies rather differently from a T-6, one learns all that while flying the T-38. And a lot more as the envelope expands dramatically. The T-38 in fact teaches very, very much of flying.

 

No, you don´t always need/do Sim-Lessons before going to the real Tanker. The first time I refueled from a KC-135 was from - the real one. That´s a bit airframe specific as ours didn´t have a fancy Dome-Visual - but it´s nothing we need anyway. At this point in training we´re flying fingertip comfortably which is more complex than following a tanker. It´s just about getting to know the sight picture (and getting used to CG-changes). 

 

Sims and VR are a Training-Tool for very specific parts of Training. They hardly replace any real-world-flying, they add to it. The huge Difference between a Computer Game with it´s Limitations and Real Life is obvious to almost everybody here and anywhere else. 

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Alpha

[Bananabrai]

On 10/14/2023 at 1:54 PM, Alpha said:

No, it isn´t airframe specific. I have flown civilian GA airplanes, different military Fighter Aircraft, pretty big civilian Airliners as well as their simulated Versions (professional and recreational/PC-based ones): So far I have never ever experienced any Simulation that is more than a good rendition of certain aspects of real Flying, sorry. It doesn´t really matter if you´re looking at Cessna-type-of-aircraft which you "master eyes closed in front of some Home Computer" and then fly for real at your local field or an Airliner you train on in a professional, full-motion simulator and then fly for real or you enjoy DCS in VR and compare that to real-world-flying in a Fighter Jet - it doesn´t get beyond a certain percentage of the real deal. There´s thousands of impressions, factors, nuances, feelings, "there is no restart-mission if you hit something" etc in real life. 

 

Best analogy I can come up with (sts) is that even the most high-res, 3D "Visual pleasure for adults on some screen" is faaaaar from the experience with a real human being    That´s about the distance we´re talking here - which still leaves a lot of fun in DCS, don´t get me wrong! Just don´t forget about the huge gap between Reality / Real world flying and Simulation / Computer-based-Entertainment.

Was that 'no' to me?

Because you were saying no but still making my point.

Besides, you are not the only one flying real aircraft. And if you have flown so many aircraft, you should know that there are many air frame specific differences between aircraft.
Or do you want to tell me a Cessna lands the same way and as easy/hard as a F-16, B747, C-130,...?

Thus I still think that AAR per se is not always harder IRL than in a simulator.
It will depend on many factors for both sides: what WX you face IRL, which aircraft do you fly, which type of AAR your aircraft uses, how "well done" are you after your (training-)mission.
Same counts for the armchair flyer: VR or monitor, good frame rate or old rusty sh*t graphics PC, had a bad day or a good one, excited or annoyed, do you already know the module or not,...

 

[Alpha]

The "no" was to the idea of "Real Life Flying being different to Computer Gaming" as being airframe specific. That difference exists for any airframe.

I´m absolutely sure that I´m not the only one flying real aircraft - never thought or said otherwise. And of course there are a lot of differences in flying different aircraft like those you mentioned - I don´t understand your question?

"Thus I still think that AAR per se is not always harder IRL than in a simulator." - Without going into the semantics of what "harder" means (sts) one can easily imagine somebody playing DCS with a keyboard and 10fps, that will definately not be easy. But that´s beside the point: The Discussion was about somebody thinking that "if one can do it in DCS you can do it in real Life" and such ideas of comparability. The answer was and is: Nope. Being able to do fine in DCS (or any Computer Game for that matter) doesn´t mean much IRL. 

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Alpha

[Dragon1-1]

On 10/19/2023 at 5:34 PM, Alpha said:

The "no" was to the idea of "Real Life Flying being different to Computer Gaming" as being airframe specific.

Except that was another statement I never made. In fact, I quite clearly stated, quite often, that there are different challenges to each. I hope you read your checklists with more comprehension than you read this forum... 

On 10/19/2023 at 5:34 PM, Alpha said:

"Thus I still think that AAR per se is not always harder IRL than in a simulator." - Without going into the semantics of what "harder" means (sts) one can easily imagine somebody playing DCS with a keyboard and 10fps, that will definately not be easy. But that´s beside the point [...]

No, it's not. It's the exact point I was making. In my original post you were responding to, I stated only that relative AAR difficulty between IRL and DCS varies between aircraft. And it seems everyone but you understood it just fine.

On 10/19/2023 at 5:34 PM, Alpha said:

The Discussion was about somebody thinking that "if one can do it in DCS you can do it in real Life" and such ideas of comparability.

Except it wasn't. I told you this wasn't my statement, that was just something I heard, from sources I consider significantly more clued in than you are. At the very least, those guys comprehend what is said to them. I already to told you where you can argue this statement with the guys who originally made it. And even if it's hyperbolic, the point behind it was that a guy who is both an experienced Viper pilot and an experienced simmer apparently found AAR so much easier to learn in the jet than in the sim that he would make such a statement in first place.

On 10/19/2023 at 10:57 AM, Bananabrai said:

It will depend on many factors for both sides: what WX you face IRL, which aircraft do you fly, which type of AAR your aircraft uses, how "well done" are you after your (training-)mission.

Yeah, more or less. AAR at night, in the rain, in indian country is always going to be stressful business, no matter what (although that goes true for the sim, as well, VR is rather immersive), while AAR on a clear day over Nellis will likely be a rather leisurely affair. And it's no doubt some aircraft are more susceptible to turbulence and such. Also, engine reaction time matters, Hornet got a lot easier to top up after they fixed the engine response. So I imagine something like F-8, with its slow spooling engines, will be the cause of many sweaty palms during AAR.  

[Alpha]

Well, there´s been at least two real life Fighter Pilots in this thread alone who tried to help you understand the difference between a computer game and real life (something close to 100% of people here do understand) and why one sentence, torn out of context, might have led you to such a mistake. It´s not our job to make you understand and instead of choosing to learn and broaden you knowledge you chose not to. 

 

So far I have "read checklists" with enough comprehension to fly safely and professionally real-life military and civilian aircraft for decades - and to be amused by individuals with zero RL background making bizarre comparisons between Computer Games and Real Life 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Alpha

[Stackup]

Well I think this conversation has about run it's course.  If not maybe a new thread needs to be started since this one was supposed to be about whether the F-4E can perform AAR not how hard it is irl vs on a screen in a completely different jet.  Since it obviously can and the OP already has an answer I think it's about time this argument ended given nobody appears to be changing their minds and become less likely to do so the more this drags on.

In other actual F-4E refueling news, Cobra said on the Discord a while back that we will also be getting an optional refueling probe to simulate Israeli F-4's as well as other customization features to make the -E appear more like the foreign operator versions.

[Bananabrai]

On 10/22/2023 at 11:26 AM, Alpha said:

Well, there´s been at least two real life Fighter Pilots in this thread alone who tried to help you understand the difference between a computer game and real life (something close to 100% of people here do understand) and why one sentence, torn out of context, might have led you to such a mistake. It´s not our job to make you understand and instead of choosing to learn and broaden you knowledge you chose not to. 

 

So far I have "read checklists" with enough comprehension to fly safely and professionally real-life military and civilian aircraft for decades - and to be amused by individuals with zero RL background making bizarre comparisons between Computer Games and Real Life 

 

The kings are helping us to understand. How honored we can be. Lovely how much you care. And so professional...

Ah sorry, forgot you said it is not your job, I guess I imagined the rest then.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Bananabrai

[Kalasnkova74]

Before we close this topic, I do have a practical question on AAR. 
 

When flying the VSN mod, I must crank the seat up pretty high to see the tanker lights. Is there a better alignment process for the pilot to line up their F-4 to the tanker? Or is the “booster seat” technique the best option in DCS?

[_BringTheReign_]

1 hour ago, Kalasnkova74 said:

When flying the VSN mod, I must crank the seat up pretty high to see the tanker lights.

The VSN mod cockpit, while improved recently, still has some scale and dimension challenges. A new version is being worked on and should alleviate some of the woes, especially in VR. Just taking time, as all things do!