If there is anything harder than air refueling I don't know what it is!

[Amarok_73]

What I repeat to everyone who claims that aerial refueling it so though is, that he (You) should find some regullary flying, "As Real" focused squadron, where at beginning he will be foced to fly close formations. After about a week of evening flying 3-4 hour long missions in such conditions, he will find arerial refueling surprisingly easy.

Me personaly, after around 40-50 hours of such trainings, foud out that the only things that requires attention is communication with tanker, then keeping safe closure rate.

At the current point, refueling is the same way complicated as formation landing.

Recently, in the mission that we was flying very late evening (or early morning rather), I was refuelling and was so sleepy and fatigue bemused, so message "transfer complete" almost scared shit out of me. So You CAN perfect this "art" to the point, where You're doing it as everything else when flying - automagically.

[SimFreak]

If you want something harder; fly with human in fingertip formation....while he is maneuvering. Suddenly air refueling we'll be easy.

[norcal bear]

I know it has been said before but practice, practice, practice. My MP mate makes it a point to involve refueling in each of the missions he creates. Not always necessary but we make it a point to hit the tanker just for fun and for extra practice. It is such a rewarding feeling to be able to top off on the boom. One thing that helps is to pay attention to the colored lines on the boom and to work the throttles. It is easy to speed up/slow down on the boom so make sure you are easy on the throttles and adjust them as necessary. Good luck!

[Tailgate]

While I was refueling I sneezed and accidentally pushed the throttle. I heard a loud "bang" as the boom hit the top of my canopy. Luckily no damage, reset and resumed refueling. Not sure if the sound effect is new, but it was pretty good.

[SmokeyTheLung]

Try refueling while smoking a cigarette...you'll look like joe dirt in no time

[WildBillKelsoe]

its damn straight the most difficult thing I yet to master..

 

even on a new stick and throttle, CH, I can't get to refuel. the tanker boom operator takes too much long to respond..

 

 

should I kiss the boom or follow in autopilot?

 

Is there a way to override autopilot so it works with receptacle cover on??

[Dethmagnetic]

I've been working on practicing AAR the past few days, here's a couple of things I've learned:

 

• Follow the tanker, not the boom. You should try to maintain a constant position and attitude relative to the tanker itself - the wings and the big yellow stripe on the bottom of the tanker should be your primary visual guidelines.
  
• Don't chase the boom. Keep your focus on the tanker and remaining steady with it - don't try to fly to the boom. The operator's job in the back of the tanker is to "fly" the boom to you, your only job is to keep the aircraft close enough and steady enough for him to do his job.
  
• Don't overreact to small movements. Don't try to "ride" the airplane and respond instantly to every motion. If you see your position changing relative to the tanker, stop and think for a moment, and then make a *small* control or throttle change and hold it. After a second or two, evaluate if the fix is working enough (or too much), then repeat.
  
• Keep a loose grip on the stick. Keep your hand relaxed - it's impossible to fly smoothly if you've tensed up into an iron hand of death. Also, you'll get horrible cramps after several hours of practice :(
  
• Don't forget to hit the NWS switch after you disconnect. This just killed me for like three hours of practice until I realized what I was doing wrong. Any time you disconnect, hit the NWS switch. If the indicator to the right of the HUD doesn't say READY, you won't get a connection, no matter how perfectly you're flying.
  

 

It seems like a lot of people also like to put curves on their stick response - I tried this and wasn't a huge fan, it made the aircraft seem sluggish in regular flight, and I didn't really want to switch back and forth between curved and non-curved depending on whether I'm doing AAR in a given flight.

[Tailgate]

I would recommend starting out by creating a mission with a straight and level flight between two distant Wpts. No orbit or wind. Once you get the hang of it, then move up to tanker orbits.

[snafup]

Hi,

Just tried my first attempt (ahem... attempts) at air to air refueling.

I need a nap.

 

 

[Druid_]

Try formating on the tankers wing. Don't even think about moving behind on the boom until you can hold a steady position on his wing else it will all end in tears !

[Wolf Rider]

yep... usually the tanker captain's :}

[WildBillKelsoe]

just went at aerial ref. oh my whole arm hurts!!!

 

managed to get contact and NWS at my pinky on throttle.

 

contact for a couple of seconds is a good motivation in place of no contact at all..

Here are my remarks:

 

there is a zone behind the tanker under the refueling portion where you just need to keep your eye on the part of tanker (I used the left inboard engine with my curved upper portion of windshield).

 

Bursts of power (remember the manual said walking footsteps? walk slow and imitate the walk in the form of throttle bursts)

 

I didn't know the tanker sweet speed, but with observation, it was 179-173 kts @ 14 thousand feet. I know its not fixed speed, but I use my frame to his and see the speed were constantly fairly close and not separating.

 

 

Make the HUD in night mode (orange so you can read the speed and altitude)

 

Establish trim at receptacle level. If that is done, minor trims at minimal moves can help with these bursts of power.

 

Gotta crash now, but will attempt more refuels in the days to come. Maybe find a clan online doing refuelling, or even host one... Cheers ED for this wonderful (and difficult feat).. Getting good at it.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

 

Another go at aerial refuelling with full load of Mk-82AIR and TGP to the right side.

 

Area of attention highlighted. Sweet!

Edited October 19, 2012 by WildBillKelsoe

[Amarok_73]

Just one more remark: Learn refueling with heavily loaded aircraft, because intert plane is much more forgiving for throttle variations, and it's much more easier to keep the propper speed by observation of extraction and retraction of the boom, and the appropriate early throttle response.

[Frogisis]

Stuck at home with a cold and decided to try my first shot at AA refueling tonight... Dang, that is hard.

I think I got the hang of it, though, more or less. Enough to actually refuel my plane, anyway.

"Gentle movements" is one thing, but it seems to work better if you don't think of moving it at all, not even like during landing. Pretty much any conscious attempt to move the controls had me overcorrecting.

And of course remembering to hit the nosewheel button if you get disconnected - I chased a tanker around for 20 minutes swearing at it before I figured that out.

 

It's pretty satisfying when you can pull it off, though - I can usually get about 5 seconds of connection now unless the tanker suddenly starts turning on me.

[Amarok_73]

About turning, I think, there should be some radio warning that tanker are to get into turn. Now it's regullar, that I am disconnecting when tanker from straight goes into turn, because it's so surprising.

[snafup]

Hi,

finally got to the point where i actually get fuel on an air to air.(woohoo):clap:

My question is:When i get fuel, have a disconnect and have to reconnect, is it normal for the speed that i originally needed to connect to go down? I started with an unloaded plane needing 180/181 to connect and as i got more fuel it slowly dropped to 177-176.

Could i be actually getting different headwinds happening in the game?

Just curious.

[Rotareneg]

I just refueled successfully for the first time myself, filling back up from 25% to full with three disconnects, and including refueling during a turn, and I hadn't practiced for months! :D

 

For me the hardest part is controlling the airspeed, mainly because the engines react slowly and because I don't have a full sized throttle, just the tiny one on my MS FFB2 stick which takes the most minute adjustments to keep connected.

[Cookie]

A helpful technique for aerial refuelling is called "walking the throttle". Unfortunately this won´t help you at all Rotareng, but users of the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS can use this technique to their advantage.

 

Basically, what you need to do is disconnect the two throttle levers by pulling out that little pin, then putting your hand over both levers and gently wiggle your hand left and right, moving just one throttle lever at a time a tiny little bit.

 

That way you have just doubled the available control range for your throttle, making it very easy to make tiny adjustments. It does take a little bit of practice at first, but rewards you with the ability to finetune your speed in steps of tenths of a knot.

 

Real pilots of multi-engined aircraft use this technique too, so you should definitely give it a shot and see if it works for you (if you own a throttle with independent levers for each engine).

[Rusty_M]

I...er...I think I managed this tonight! It still takes me several connects to do well, but they're now frequently around a minute long. I'm getting better. Is the sign of a successful refuel when the tanker guy says "disconnect", but the little light next to your HUD says "latched"? I assume that's him telling me I've had enough.

[Profet]

there is a zone behind the tanker under the refueling portion where you just need to keep your eye on the part of tanker (I used the left inboard engine with my curved upper portion of windshield).QUOTE]

 

I think thats a little too low. You should be able to see the whole boom and its colors to better judge your position.

My pic is a little too high, but you get the idea.:thumbup:

 

http://sdrv.ms/RoCPdC

[Megagoth1702]

Hey!

 

A great thing that I randomly discovered yesterday:

 

Trim perfectly and USE YOUR total velocity vector!!! Just keep it in the middle!

 

What I used to do is - I had my eyes on the tanker all the time so although I was not boom hunting I had no clue whether my plane is flying straight or a bit up/down.

 

So from now on I am using a combination of looking at the TVV and keeping it in the middle -> making sure that I dont go up/down and looking at the boom a couple of times to make sure I am not too slow/fast/left/right.

 

:)

[sumerion]

I practiced formationflying alot before I managed to refuel.

 

Set up some missions with diffrent aircraft, altitudes, speeds, loadouts, winds etc. and just fly with them. On the sides, behind, above.. everywhere.

 

when refuel, only small stickmovements and try to think ahead, for example if you give a little more thrust the hog will climb and you need to stick forward even if it´s just a micro movement.

 

One more example, if the boom is coming towards yellow and you need to give some thrust, you have ta reduce thrust before you are back on green or you´ll risk "overshoot" it´s not entirely true but a good advice someone gave me.

 

After a while you don´t have to think ahead it comes naturally.

And as said before, don´t chase the boom, the tanker is really stable and thats what the hog should be too.

 

I also trim my aircraft before connect, not during.

 

Don´t overcompensate, it´s better to disconnect and try again or you look like a drunk.

 

Most important, relax your hands and don´t give up.

 

Well, this is some advice from me...

[Wolf Rider]

seems we're not alone...

 

[Megagoth1702]

Holy shit that's scary!

[Amarok_73]

seems we're not alone...

(...)

Observe that just after the boom goes into upper position, horizon goes down, what means that tanker have dived into receiver plane, not opposite. At the first glance I thought, that receiver have pulled controls to crash with tanker, because he had no GAU to show what he think about all this situation, as I did many times, when I started to learn aerial refueling. :-)