Refueling: AI level of the boom-operator

[Lange_666]

Been running some refuel training missions lately but without much succes (accept the occational lucky shot).

I can fly upon the tankers ass without much trouble.

I hold the A-10 quite steady behind the tanker at boom's level without much jo-jo-ing.

 

But...

 

I get the feeling that i have to do all the work instead of the boom operator which should "fly" the boom into the refuel door instead of me flying my A-10 into the refueling boom.

 

First of all, a few meters just before contact, the boom always lift's a few feet like it's going for an F-16 refuel (which is behind the cockpit). Why?

 

Secondly, just before contact, if i make just a little slow slideslip, the boom-operator does not follow what i'm doing.

 

And 3th, once contact is made, the moment i slip a bit to either left or right, the boom disconnects as where in real life (looking at various video's) the booms stays connected and is "flown" by the boom-operator to keep it in possition as long as possible.

 

These 3 things make me feel the boom-eprator is a bit of a moron (just like much of the rest of the AI, on par with ATC).

 

Nice example on how the boom operator fly's the boom is seen in this video starting at around 45 secs into the video. The A-10 slips a bit to the left and the boom-operator follows the aircraft in order to make contact.

 

Edited July 16, 2011 by Lange_666

[Paco]

The refueling in this game/simulation takes practice and lots of of, but once you get it, it becomes rather routine. When I first started it would take me perhaps a dozen hook-ups to get gas. Now I generally come up to the tanker connect once, get my gas, then I'm on my way. I've even used the radio menu while on the boom.

Here's what helped me: 1) zoom out just a tad from the default view 2) initially I was hooking up from a low position, try putting the "green apple" just above the HUD glass 3) speaking of "green apple" focus on keeping that extendable boom right at that green apple position while using peripheal vision to judge your station keeping

Hope this helps. I use an X52 and trackIR.

[mooshim]

If it's any consolation... I suck at refueling. I am more crap at refueling than any purchaser of this sim. --HAWX 2 pilots laugh at me...:(

[Talon-X-]

If it's any consolation... I suck at refueling. I am more crap at refueling than any purchaser of this sim. --HAWX 2 pilots laugh at me...:(

 

I don't know....I think I'd give you a run for your money:).

[Lange_666]

The refueling in this game/simulation takes practice and lots of of, but once you get it, it becomes rather routine. When I first started it would take me perhaps a dozen hook-ups to get gas. Now I generally come up to the tanker connect once, get my gas, then I'm on my way. I've even used the radio menu while on the boom.

Here's what helped me: 1) zoom out just a tad from the default view 2) initially I was hooking up from a low position, try putting the "green apple" just above the HUD glass 3) speaking of "green apple" focus on keeping that extendable boom right at that green apple position while using peripheal vision to judge your station keeping

Hope this helps. I use an X52 and trackIR.

 

Thanks for the heads-up but it's not really on how to get it done but on how the boom-operator does his job in this simulation.

If i get real close, the boom suddenly jumps up (why? because it does not happen in real life). If you focus on the boom to much at that point, you start yo-yo ing. You have to crawl further upwards to make contact again.

In real life, as a pilot you try to keep position to the tanker while the boom operator fly's the boom into your aircraft.

In this simulation, you fly your aircraft into the boom... :joystick:

 

 

A few nice hook-ups in real life. BTW, you hear the boom working...(and the camera).

Edited July 16, 2011 by Lange_666

[Fish]

Boom operator is not so bad IMO. Look at some of the videos, or trks'. Concentrate on position, and not chasing the boom. Like poster above said, once you got it once you got it, cause till then you think there's something wrong. Boom angle is important, you should aim for 45 deg on contact. All the instructions and advice are no substitute for practice.

 

And don't forget to reset the contact request if you have made and broke contact (NWS button). This gets the boom operator to start again. And you gotta have your yaw and pitch control sensitivity reduced.

 

Good luck :smilewink:

[Smokin Hole]

The boomer does a great job. Let that jump be your guide as to where he wants you relative to the KC10. After that your job is to form with the tanker, not the boom. If you try to "correct" the boom's position relative to you, you will be adding you corrections to his and making a mess of things. The KC10, it's wings fuselage and engines, make sort of an X shape on the upper forward portion of your windscreen. Maintain that shape and only reference the boom for power adjustments.

[Speed]

Well, the boom operator in the game seems to just raise the boom up and wait for you to get into position, at which point he will lower the boom down a bit begin trying to connect. He will in fact fly the boom into your refueling receptacle, and yes, if you get out of position to either side, you will in fact stay connected unless you get too far out of constraints. I donno what you are talking about, that part works great.

 

What doesn't work is when you are coming in too fast, and obviously have no hope of connecting, or slip too far forward and, or do just about any other dangerous move, the @!#$ING MORON does not know to GET THE #$#$ING BOOM OUT OF THERE!!!! IRL, if the boom operator saw you start flailing around, he wouldn't just stick his thing out there closer and closer to you till he had it jammed in front of your face and you flailed into it and had a mid-air collision. The boom operator AI is actually far too aggressive in DCS. You could come flying past the boom at mach 1 and he'd still ram the boom out there in front of you and try to connect with you in the 100 milliseconds it took for you to flash by. I can't count the number of times I've gotten out of position and disconnect, and am just trying to back off a ways and make a new approach, and he keeps jamming the goddamn boom in my @#@#ing face, and quite often, I collide with it because he doesn't know when it's hopeless and he needs to back off. GET SOME COMMON SENSE BOOM GUY!!!!

 

And yes, of course, with practice on my end, this problem will go away, but as long as I at least occasionally disconnect while I am refueling, it's pretty annoying.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Speed

[Lange_666]

The boomer does a great job. Let that jump be your guide as to where he wants you relative to the KC10. After that your job is to form with the tanker, not the boom. If you try to "correct" the boom's position relative to you, you will be adding you corrections to his and making a mess of things. The KC10, it's wings fuselage and engines, make sort of an X shape on the upper forward portion of your windscreen. Maintain that shape and only reference the boom for power adjustments.

 

Practice is one thing, the more i do it, the better i get in connecting (and staying connected, 14 secs is the longest i have managed so far...LOL) but i still have to see him (boomer boy) to connect to me rather then i have to connect to the boomer while in position.

 

Also, why does one blackout a while after the boom slams into the canopy?

[Lange_666]

Also, the end of the boom can go through the A-10C fuselage

 

 

 

And 2 attempts later...

 

 

Should it not slide into the recepter hole instead of getting stuck on the front of the fuselage and get squeezed?

BTW, in both occations the boomer operator didn't lift the boom a bit to fly it in. He just didn't do anything. Time to sack this dude and give him a desk job...(or is that what he's looking for... :smilewink:)

[Druid_]

It seems to me the boom operator has much more constrained limits to its real life counterpart. (i.e. total movement 15 degrees in pitch with limits of 25-40 degrees from horizontal). Therefore if you approach the boom at the upper level of its limit he won't raise it.

 

When you close in and he initially raises into position, approach slightly low on the boom, don't try and fly the boom into the recipticle. Approach very slowly and you will find he will lower the boom nicely into position for you.

 

I find the ideal approach to be where I can just see the very bottom of the boom wings with the rest hidden by the canopy arch (normal zoom levels) when I am about 10ft from the boom. My observations of others are that most approach too high on the boom rather than too low (that last minute raise of the boom into position doesn't help tbh).

Edited July 27, 2011 by Druid_

[Joyride]

All the instructions and advice are no substitute for practice

 

Dead on. Some people like to zoom in, some like to zoom out, some freeze Track IR, some don't, etc etc. I went from thinking it was impossible to now filling up on one attempt...with a LOT of practice...definitely the most gratifying experience of this sim! Stick with it and you will be rewarded!