Tanker question
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I built a TE in Persian Gulf theater and assigned a tanker between two way points. I was able to refuel then fly to mission. On my way home I tried to refuel and the tanker was cooperative and I got it to the point were I was placing the cross hair on the boom (as always) but the tanker never gave a clearance to refuel! it’s as though I can refuel only once. Is there a way to correct for that.
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On the way home, did you try the “Back in pre-contact” radio call for the tanker?
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never knew about that call, there are only three options.
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yes I can see now it is the second option. I’ll give it another shot see if he can respond this time. Thanks pal
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Often if the tanker hesitates to clear you to contact, the Y-2 call can wake up the boom operator and make him look out the window I use it so often I bound it to a key on my throttle
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@alfred y-2 used to be used by some people in 4.33. Not the same function anymore. People keep recommending it as a tradition.
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@lorikeolmin said in Tanker question:
@alfred y-2 used to be used by some people in 4.33. Not the same function anymore. People keep recommending it as a tradition.
What I have found is that in 4.35 if you need to refuel more than once in a flight - for example in ingress and then again on egress - you HAVE to use the Y2 command or you wont get back on the boom. So the sequence of events is…
- fly to tanker -flight lead presses Y1
- do your first AAR and then press Y3 (if other in flight they also take fuel and press Y3 when done)
- go strike your target and then fly back to tanker
- flight lead presses Y1…once in pre contact press Y2 (if you don’t you will never get cleared on to boom)
- take fuel, press Y3 when done
Not sure if that’s a function by design or a bug but it never worked that way in the past and reading the manual would seem to indicate that a Y2 should never be required in normal operations.
Having just flown a mission that required five refuelings I can assure you that pressing Y2 was required on all but the first one.
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@zeus As @LorikEolmin and the comms handbook state, my experience both SP and MP has been that with 4. Y2 “in Precontact” is not required unless some other circumstances require it, like you wanted to get back on the boom after pressing Y3 “done refueling” or someone wants to tank out of order. The most common cause of not getting cleared to contact is not holding a good, stable Precontact position. You may use it, but it isn’t actually making a difference and sometimes may screw up the order if you aren’t really in Precontact and someone else is (ask me how I know).
EDIT: Sorry I see the “egress” point after tanking ingress there!!! I see that could be required but has been awhile since I tested it. I’ll add that to the list and maybe try it tonight.
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@zeus said in Tanker question:
@lorikeolmin said in Tanker question:
@alfred y-2 used to be used by some people in 4.33. Not the same function anymore. People keep recommending it as a tradition.
What I have found is that in 4.35 if you need to refuel more than once in a flight - for example in ingress and then again on egress - you HAVE to use the Y2 command or you wont get back on the boom. So the sequence of events is…
- fly to tanker -flight lead presses Y1
- do your first AAR and then press Y3 (if other in flight they also take fuel and press Y3 when done)
- go strike your target and then fly back to tanker
- flight lead presses Y1…once in pre contact press Y2 (if you don’t you will never get cleared on to boom)
- take fuel, press Y3 when done
Not sure if that’s a function by design or a bug but it never worked that way in the past and reading the manual would seem to indicate that a Y2 should never be required in normal operations.
Having just flown a mission that required five refuelings I can assure you that pressing Y2 was required on all but the first one.
It certainly doesn’t seem to be on purpose, especially when “Back in Pre-Contact Position” has nothing to do with “I need a refuel after my first one in this flight”. This will probably interest @Mav-jp or @Bad-Boy. or @Seifer? If the code wasn’t reworked already.
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@zeus On first try, it does indeed seem to require a Y2 to reconnect on egress if tanked on ingress! Mea culpa! I did get a double “cleared to contact” in response from the tanker, not sure if you are experiencing that or that my Precontact position at that point was pretty close.
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why all this complication, why doesn’t the tanker extend and refuel every time it is asked. It gives an impression of a simple fix. What about tanker sometimes saying “unable” why would the tanker decides to decent for landing when there is still one hour of flight remaining?
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@snake122 said in Tanker question:
@zeus On first try, it does indeed seem to require a Y2 to reconnect on egress if tanked on ingress! Mea culpa! I did get a double “cleared to contact” in response from the tanker, not sure if you are experiencing that or that my Precontact position at that point was pretty close.
As mentioned above, I believe this is a bug that got introduced in 4.35 (possibly one of the last 4.34 releases). We do missions that require multiple refueling stop on a fairly regular basis and in the past this was never an issue. However, the Y2 command is now absolutely required when doing more than one AAR. The first AAR works as expected and no need for Y2.
This is easy to duplicate. Take the AAR training flight that is included with BMS, refuel normally then go burn off some gas (or dump fuel) and come back to the tanker a second time. You will get cleared to pre-contact (and likely get that message multiple times) but then no matter how well you hold precontact position, you wont get cleared to contact. When you press Y2 you will get another “cleared precontact” followed immediate by “cleared to contact position” message (usually twice).
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why does it say “unable” sometimes? even though it was the start of it’s mission
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@alfred said in Tanker question:
why does it say “unable” sometimes? even though it was the start of it’s mission
If it was a TE, it is usually because the tanker isn’t at its patrol steerpoints/TOT for the tanker track yet.
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I don’t think it’s that. Tanker is on station from 12:41:18z to 17:41:19 and I requested fuel at 12:47:34z but it was saying unable. Really strange because I flew the same mission and was able to refuel once. Perhaps I changed something that corrupted the file.
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@alfred
The Tanker will open the pub only when running between his assigned waypoints. If you call before or after this condition, the tanker will reply “Unable” and ain’t able to do its job. In your case, you called the tanker only (about…) 6 minutes after its expected time on station, thus I guess it wasn’t in position yet. -
yes you are right. I deleted the first tanker and added another one and it worked the way I read here. Thank you for the help. The only thing I am not sure of now is if the refuel must be on the way to the target and from. In other words is it possible to skip tanking on the way to the target and come back to the tanker with half target destroyed, refuel, go back to target destroy rest of target , get back again to the tanker for refuel again. that one I need to check.
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@alfred said in Tanker question:
The only thing I am not sure of now is if the refuel must be on the way to the target and from…
If you skip the planned AA Refuel, the only effect is in your TOT, that will result in advance, as you assign a time to spend in refuel. Of course, in some mission like ( i.e. CAS or CAP ), you don’t need to plan AA refuel but a good Joker/Bingo status and notice the tanker’s opening time.
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@alfred Usually the tanker has a 5 hour refueling window so that should not be a problem. If you are flight lead you can choose to do so no problem since your flight does what you want them to do. So any time you check in with the tanker they follow.
If you are flying as #2 (or #3 or 4) with an AI flight lead, your flight lead might not consider refueling outside the given steerpoint sequence.
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thank very much you for the responses. How can we make the element refuel before the wingman, say for example the wingman is half empty but the element is bingo. I was thinking rejoin call to the wingman