Weird tanker behavior
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hi. i’m new at this, and it doesn’t mention it in the FM in the tanker section.
basically it enters a weird turn once 1 in the flight completes tanking, drifts off and calls Y-3. even in the middle of it’s track (like 80+ miles!) it will begin a turn in the same pattern as one of it’s normal turns, but it doesn’t seem to follow any logic in where it’s going exactly, then it will level out and allow 2 to tank, then do the same thing again. what’s strange i guess is that it doesn’t call heads up, it just enters the turn and won’t respond to any radio call while it’s in it.
am i doing something wrong? for reference my procedure (according to manual) enter tanker ring ~10nm, ask for fuel y-1, approach to precontact, get cleared to contact, approach to contact, get contact, take fuel, wait for tanker to disconnect me at full fuel, turn off tanker to “on deck” call y-3 topped off.
it seems to enter that weird turn 100% of the time for me. intended?
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Tanker coding is just completely screwball this way. Get used to it for the time being. We can always hope that 4.33 gives us something more reliable.
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Tanker turning after Y-3 is a bug that sometimes occurs, but I don’t know what exactly triggers it.
My best guess is that, after Y-3, it searches for the nearest waypoint in its track and then turns towards that but due to the turn radius (of several miles), this could end up in it turning indefinitely, because he’s too close to the point to actually reach it. Unfortunately, when it’s stuck in this “pattern”, you’ll get weird or no calls giving you a heads up about the tanker entering a turn (even when you’re already flying circles for several minutes)I think the only workaround for this would be for the coders to have the updated tanker (in 4.33, I suppose that would be then) check which waypoint is in the front quarters of its current heading, and if both are in the rear or same quarters, pick the furthest point?
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kinda weird that it turns at all, considering it doesn’t need to. the normal turns to stay on steerpoint i understand, but why turn in the middle of the track? i think it’s actually leaving it’s track, which then necessitates more turning to get back on track after it temporarily recovers it’s sanity.
i guess the tanker is driven by lunatics
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Like Eagle Eye said… We found the tanker will turn after someone clears the tanker with Y-3 whenever it is off it’s track. If you mark his track and he gets off it (because of his big wide turns when connected), he will turn towards it. But sometimes he gets stuck in a perpetual turn so you have to get good at tanking in a turn unfortunately.
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so you have to get good at tanking in a turn unfortunately.
One of the greatest, most satisfying, challenges FBMS has to offer…
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dunno, i’ve gotten into pretty good precontact before while he’s in a weird turn and he’s never cleared me, might be a symptom of the radio silence. if he’s in a non-anomaly turn i usually just wait patiently and then get cleared pretty much as soon as he’s level again.
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You just need to trim a bit and it is not more difficult.
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so you guys are saying you can get precontact in a nonscheduled turn? i’ve never managed it, but maybe it’s just because i’m out of ideal position in the turn. didn’t think about trimming, i usually just make the inputs manually. thanks for the tip.
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@Cik:
so you guys are saying you can get precontact in a nonscheduled turn? i’ve never managed it, but maybe it’s just because i’m out of ideal position in the turn. didn’t think about trimming, i usually just make the inputs manually. thanks for the tip.
Yes, you can get pre-contact and cleared to contact in an unscheduled turn.
Like Mower, I agree that it is one of BMS’s toughest challenges. Unlike Mower, I find it more annoying than satisfying.
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Upside is always that direction where the lift vector points until the absence of free space between your plane and the ground permits that rule. Up is where the tanker is :razz:
You just need to free your mind from the old “up” and “down” and focus yourself on the tanker. It surely takes a lot of practice and smooth inputs to connect in a turn and stay connected, but if you’ve done it once, you will be able to do it again and again. It’s just a mind thing and once you figured it out, it isn’t much harder than connecting in a straight flight.
I’ve never seen a youtube tutorial about that… Would be interesting.
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Hmmm . . . when mission planning, look carefully at the tanker’s scheduled track. I know from real world experience that the tanker generally flies a racetrack pattern when refueling fighters. The straight legs are about twelve miles long, with two-minute turns at either end.
Real world USAF fighter pilots have no problem getting into contact position, even during the turns. Formation flying is a huge part of their training, and refueling is nothing more than that.
Now comes the difference between the real world and the sim. With respect to the BMS programmers, I had a lot of discretion in whether I could plug a fighter. The programmers can only approximate the correct parameters without considerable flexible ‘AI’ programming. There are so many variables . . .
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when you say racetrack you mean 4 steerponts in rough square, circle, or two steerpoints in a straight line?
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@Cik:
when you say racetrack you mean 4 steerponts in rough square, circle, or two steerpoints in a straight line?
Racetrack pattern:
12 miles seems awful short though. I thought one of the AF docs indicated minimum 50 mile legs for at least one of the standard tanker track patterns.
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Racetrack pattern:
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2007/a07q0213/a07q0213_figure_1.gif
12 miles seems awful short though. I thought one of the AF docs indicated minimum 50 mile legs for at least one of the standard tanker track patterns.
You mean like this?
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Racetrack pattern:
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2007/a07q0213/a07q0213_figure_1.gif
12 miles seems awful short though. I thought one of the AF docs indicated minimum 50 mile legs for at least one of the standard tanker track patterns.
yeah. i usually do 50-80 mile legs, otherwise the thing will be turning constantly, to the annoyance of my wingmen.
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One of the most important things for AAR, is the quality of your joystick actualy.
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One of the most important things for AAR, is the quality of your joystick actualy.
Agreed, changing from a loose stick with play & large deadzone to FCC made life 200% easier doing AAR.
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From BMS Manual (in your :\Falcon BMS 4.32\Docs\Falcon BMS Manuals folder) p139:
Tankers de-aggregated in 3D world will now fly a two minute holding pattern anchored on their first target waypoint
when there are no receivers in their refuel queue. At typical speed/alt for tanker flight plans this is probably a 15-18nm
oval from apex to apex. As a result the tanker should most of the time be closer to that first target waypoint where he
will anchor in the holding pattern until receivers come along at which point he will fly the full track pattern.Since the aggregated tanker flies the full track length all the time in 2D world, it is possible that when he de-aggregates
for your flight that he’s not in the holding pattern. If he has no receivers in tow he will try to enter the hold if you don’t
get there and ask for fuel before he reaches the anchor turn point. This may be useful to you depending on the
geometry: it may be more efficient to fly an intercept on the tanker’s anchor point and only call him for fuel once he
enters the hold. Certainly if you join and call for fuel as he turns outbound again from the anchor point you will have
the longest straight and level segment of his track to try and grab fuel before he turns again.The last bit I put in Bold is the top tip here. If you wait until the tanker has almost completed his turn outbound from his anchor point you will find he is much more likely to fly the full track pattern. It doesn’t always work but it’s the best chance you have if you’re still a bit nervous about topping up in the turn.