A - A Refueling..?
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I come in from a low position and scoot right up to the tanker in a climb as I pull back on the throttle. The climb slows you down without loosing altitude. Coast right into position.
Menessis
Cool…now show us a video of it, sir…
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Just to clarify: Mav means the dead zone is active in the FLCS when the a/r door is open, also when the landing gear is down BTW.
no, stick curve is strictly identical in every gains and they have a “dead” zone… see article.
however depending on the gains the response is different
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Check out my videos, they may help, took me a while to master as well (it aint easy)…
Mower, nice flying Sir, but the PYT Boom Operator requests you stop frying her eggs!
Do you find it easier to hook to one rather than the other types? KC-10 or KC-135?
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Hi all, just thought i would fire up the TE, and try it. Dam, it’s hard! I am struggling to maintain position with the tanker, what sort of advice is there regarding dead zones on the controls? Im Using X-55 hotas. Tried it will small and medium on the flight stick axis, no real luck yet. Need more practice too yes
Hi,
I learned myself to refuel smoothly just ~2 years ago (and I’m Flying Falcon for ~12-13 years now…), so here are the 4 best advices I got when I faced the same:
1. Don’t try to manage yourself by the HUD numbers (i.e speed, altitude), it doesn’t work!2. Related to 1, don’t try to “refuel” but think of AAR as a close formation flying with the tanker, so what you really need is to learn to fly formation, the refueling operation is an outcome of that.
3. When you get close, try to be REALLY gentle, especially with the throttle, don’t forget throttle changes are “delayed” (you move the throttle but you see the outcome after a couple of seconds) so you must have that in mind when adjusting throttle position, especially when you are close enough.
4. Practice practice practice! Obvious but true… when you are done you will find you can refuel even while inverted
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Another thing that helped me at first when getting to grips with AAR (sort of) was see-sawing on the cougar throttle more than seemed necessary. This way I was able to keep the engine at high revs most of the time where I’ve read it responds more rapidly. I was using a method similar to the following (without watching the HUD numbers, just making sure the tanker staid steady within the HUD or relative to my A/C):
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move throttle al the way up to a/b detent (before it goes “first click” on the cougar)
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leave it there for a couple of seconds
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move throttle all the way back to the idle detent switch (obviously before it goes “click”)
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leave it there for a second
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Rinse and repeat as necessary
These days I’m sometimes able to refuel successfully without the “throttle see-saw” method, but when I haven’t done it in a long while, I find this method gets me going again.
HTH,
Uwe
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Some good tips here. Had another refueling session last light, tanker and wing man were killed at least 3 times before i gave up. I’m having trouble mainly getting the speed right, cant seem to keep my airspeed constant, always too quick, then too slow etc cant find control as yet. Will keep at it.
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Some good tips here. Had another refueling session last light, tanker and wing man were killed at least 3 times before i gave up. I’m having trouble mainly getting the speed right, cant seem to keep my airspeed constant, always too quick, then too slow etc cant find control as yet. Will keep at it.
Well, try to arrive about a half mile behind the tanker doing 300 knots. Thats step one.
Once you have that down, add a bit of throttle up to about 320 knots. As you get closer, throttle back to where you were at 300 knots. Slide into position behind the tanker, and see about attaching the gun cross on the HUD to the end of the boom. Small corrections are key. You need to go left, then bank left to say 5 or 10 degrees, let the heading angle change by a degree or so and then correct back by banking the opposite direction for the same amount of time. To go backwards, if you overshoot, let your speed drop to 295. If you fall back, bring it up to 320 if you dont need to go more than a half mile ish.
To find that throttle spot, you might start by banging the throttle off both stops. Instead try to set it to an upper range, and see if that moves you forwards or backwards on the tanker. If it moves you forwards, move the throttle to a lower range and check again. Keep moving the throttle between the upper and lower range, narrowing the range until you find the sweet spot.
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Some good tips here. Had another refueling session last light, tanker and wing man were killed at least 3 times before i gave up. I’m having trouble mainly getting the speed right, cant seem to keep my airspeed constant, always too quick, then too slow etc cant find control as yet. Will keep at it.
Try turning off the HUD when within half a mile or so. Be patient, look for your closure physically rather than trying to catch any particular speed.
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Keep moving the throttle between the upper and lower range, narrowing the range until you find the sweet spot.
Very good advice, and well put.
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Are there many missions in the campaign you guys have flown that have required AAR? if so what have they been for?
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Are there many missions in the campaign you guys have flown that have required AAR? if so what have they been for?
No generated missions need AAR. It would generate a whole new level of complexity to the mission-generating process
Tanker missions are generated though, both to provide emergency refueling to AI and humans, or if a human user wants to modify or create a mission to use a tanker on ingress.
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Yea i noticed in a campaign in the briefing for a mission will state if theres’ a tanker airborne which brings me to ask this, do you need the frequency for the tanker to contact them, and frequency for awacs, which you’d put in your DTC? and those are displayed in the briefing? i saw one mission where it says theres’ awacs and provides like 3 or 4 different frequencies for them…bit confusing.
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Try turning off the HUD when within half a mile or so. Be patient, look for your closure physically rather than trying to catch any particular speed.
This is indded the best advice we can give.
Speed and alt are important for the rejoin, when you are in a good visual range, lets say about 1Nm, switch to visual cues and forget your speed and alt indications, keep the visual of the tanker anytime and fly the visual cues. To have a better closure cue, do not say right on the 6 o’clock but rather in a 45° bearing relative to the tanker until the observation position, then stabilise. Once stabilised, go astern postion and stabilise again. After, go slowly in the contact position. If it gose bad, go back to the astern position, stabilise and try again. Do not try to do all at the same time. Use small intputs and wait for the effects. Be patient.
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Yea i noticed in a campaign in the briefing for a mission will state if theres’ a tanker airborne which brings me to ask this, do you need the frequency for the tanker to contact them, and frequency for awacs, which you’d put in your DTC? and those are displayed in the briefing? i saw one mission where it says theres’ awacs and provides like 3 or 4 different frequencies for them…bit confusing.
No need to set those freq in DTC as you can enter the freq directly via ICP. dTC is just a shortcut for the frequencies that you will use several times during the mission. For the freq, you can choose the one you want among the list, it makes no real differences.
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No need to set those freq in DTC as you can enter the freq directly via ICP. dTC is just a shortcut for the frequencies that you will use several times during the mission. For the freq, you can choose the one you want among the list, it makes no real differences.
Yea but for me its best to put them in the DTC incase you forget them, and saves writing them down. What about those like 3 or 4 different awacs frequencies that you see in the briefing? which one is right or can you contact them on any of them with UHF? and is there a freq you need for the tanker if there is one?
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Are there many missions in the campaign you guys have flown that have required AAR? if so what have they been for?
I haven’t flown any in the campaign, but sometimes in Falcon with a custom TE I setup a tanker track because I am loitering over an area providing CAS Support and my fuel often goes faster then my bombs because the troops on the ground are so painfully slow.
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I haven’t flown any in the campaign, but sometimes in Falcon with a custom TE I setup a tanker track because I am loitering over an area providing CAS Support and my fuel often goes faster then my bombs because the troops on the ground are so painfully slow.
More that the Viper sucks back hard on the gas.
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Without the HUD… If I can do it, anyone can!
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More that the Viper sucks back hard on the gas.
No, it’s more that I’m flying over Altis for two or three hours at a time. My standard load is 8 GBUs. That’s only eight bomb drops. You would think in three hours, 8 bombs would go fairly quick, but they do not. Then there is ingress time (there are not many Greek airfields close to Altis, and for our purposes the Altis island airfield is ‘hostile’) and egress time (because I like to land safely) and when I am feeling daring I play the TE with the MIG’s that rush up from Turkey to try to intercept me occasionally…
So all in all, it has very little to do with the amount of gas in the Falcon and more to do with the fact that if I take fuel tanks I am sacrificing half or more of my bomb load, and thus don’t need the bombs. But if I take the bombs, I need the gas.
So I add the tanker. And some escorts for it, and two HAVCAPs for it, and an AWACs and some escorts and it’s HAVCAP. And that makes the whole game more fun because now there are a lot of aircraft in the sky, and they all have schedules so they are constantly rotating and it feels more like a living breathing world.
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…I need to try this HUD-less. I gots an idea…