Warthog and refuelling
-
Ok ive tried air refuelling with the warthog for the first time and it’s… challenging. As in impossible.
The slightest touch on the stick translates in a bank. I cannot keep the damn horizon straight, and it has to be bullseye straight in order to stay still under the belly of that Kc. If i even have a little of a jagged line on one side and i think of touching it on the other, simply the .01 bank on one side moves to the other.
Now how do i solve this? Modifying curves? Deadzoning? GITing GUD?
-
Did you disable the initial deadzone that the software sets? I did that thinking I was doing myself a favor, but it turns out that the Hall sensor in the Warthog is far more precise than my arm could even hope to be. Shocker! Once I re-enabled it it solved all of my controllability issues other than simply needing time to adjust to a new stick.
-
what software are you refering to? BMS or TARGET?
-
Not going to lie; I thought at first you were fueling in an A-10 Warthog, not with the HOTAS ha.
Over the last 8 months or so, I’ve gone from using a very broken, sloppy stock Cougar, to a force sensing one (which I couldn’t get right due to said slop) and now a U2NXT Cougar. The stick is VERY light and pricise. When I was on a stock or force sensed cougar, I had to have a deadzone applied in CCP to account for the slop. Now, I don’t need it but have had to add a -2 curve (exponential) to the X and Y axis, otherwise it’s just too easy to over correct/manouvre. I’m sure with time I’ll adjust and be able to remove the curve, but perhaps it’s something you could try?
-
Not going to lie; I thought at first you were fueling in an A-10 Warthog, not with the HOTAS ha.
Over the last 8 months or so, I’ve gone from using a very broken, sloppy stock Cougar, to a force sensing one (which I couldn’t get right due to said slop) and now a U2NXT Cougar. The stick is VERY light and pricise. When I was on a stock or force sensed cougar, I had to have a deadzone applied in CCP to account for the slop. Now, I don’t need it but have had to add a -2 curve (exponential) to the X and Y axis, otherwise it’s just too easy to over correct/manouvre. I’m sure with time I’ll adjust and be able to remove the curve, but perhaps it’s something you could try?
Strongly advise against any curve (other than zero curvature curves, aka linear) in your stick response graph.
For that matter Id advise against the deadzone too, but if you had to pick which one to get rid of, it would be the curve. If you need to adjust the response, adjust with deadzones, not curves. BMS already applies its own response to the stick input to match the FLCS behavior.
-
Strongly advise against any curve (other than zero curvature curves, aka linear) in your stick response graph.
For that matter Id advise against the deadzone too, but if you had to pick which one to get rid of, it would be the curve. If you need to adjust the response, adjust with deadzones, not curves. BMS already applies its own response to the stick input to match the FLCS behavior.
Understand and whilst I agree, it can’t compensate for just how light the U2NXT is. It’s so smooth and light to use, you actually can’t easily rest your hand on the hand rest without giving an input.
Maybe I’m just used to flying RC helicopters. Try flying one of them linearly and you’ll quickly learn to love exponential curves
-
ok this is interesting, as in im panicking.
In device analyzer the X axys center value is -400 odds instead of 0.WTF?
EDIT: I followed a tutorial found here on how try to zeroize the axis. i didnt get a zero, but now it’s gone down to -70 -and since i even got results as off as -1600 i can say im happy with that… ill try AAR shortly so i hope this will somehow fix my drifting problems
-
what software are you refering to? BMS or TARGET?
TARGET. In the TARGET GUI there’s a checkbox for a very small deadzone. Made the difference for me. I don’t use any deadzone/saturation settings in the BMS setup.
ok this is interesting, as in im panicking.
In device analyzer the X axys center value is -400 odds instead of 0.WTF?
EDIT: I followed a tutorial found here on how try to zeroize the axis. i didnt get a zero, but now it’s gone down to -70 -and since i even got results as off as -1600 i can say im happy with that… ill try AAR shortly so i hope this will somehow fix my drifting problems
That was how mine was too and the TARGET deadzone is what resolved it.
-
Ok ive tried air refuelling with the warthog for the first time and it’s… challenging. As in impossible.
The slightest touch on the stick translates in a bank. I cannot keep the damn horizon straight, and it has to be bullseye straight in order to stay still under the belly of that Kc. If i even have a little of a jagged line on one side and i think of touching it on the other, simply the .01 bank on one side moves to the other.
Now how do i solve this? Modifying curves? Deadzoning? GITing GUD?
Practice, practice, practice. You will learn how to control the aircraft via the WH for AAR by doing it a lot. I haven’t had to modify anything on curves, deadzones, etc. but just by getting used to controlling the aircraft. There is no point where you will have the perfect stick or throttle input where you won’t have to touch anything. Flying close formations is all about constant and small inputs.
-
Understand and whilst I agree, it can’t compensate for just how light the U2NXT is. It’s so smooth and light to use, you actually can’t easily rest your hand on the hand rest without giving an input.
Maybe I’m just used to flying RC helicopters. Try flying one of them linearly and you’ll quickly learn to love exponential curves
Then use a deadzone in the center of the stick, if you feel you need one. Unless the stick is faulty, i.e. it already has a positive exponential response curve, you should not need to have a software negative curve in place. Especially on top of the BMS response curve that is hardcoded and changes based on aircraft condition (control gains).
-
I use a Warthog, linear response, no deadzone.
As Stubbies pointed out, it’s a case of practice. I’ve been flying this SIM for over one year and managed to refuel for the first time last week
Just stick with it….No pun intended.
-
no shortcuts then, nor anything to blame except my ineptitude…
-
Not a case of ineptitude, just another skill to be mastered.
-
Yeah no one starts being able to AAR no problem. Just work it and you will get it.
-
When I launch TARGET Device Analyzer, My Warthog stick has about ±40 to ±400 deviation for X-axis centering disabling the dead zone via TARGET. 400 against 65536 is only 0.6% of axis shifting but I have a slight rolling of aircraft in the most of DCS modules (and don’t have any rolling at BMS perhaps because of F-16 FLCS deadzone implementation). With TARGET dead zone my Warthog backs to almost 0, means its backs to perfect center position. I disable dead zone via BMS ADVANCED OPTIONS UI and without any curves or dead zones, I can AAR easily at BMS these days.
-
The thing that baffles me is that i cant seem to be able to keep the horizon straight for the life of me, even exercizing the least amount of force on the stick, so it seems to me that the quantum of energy required to move the stick feeds enough movement to pass the center and goes the other way, as slight as it is but enough to make me sway off center. Ill try and train some more. Ive read around people that have tried holding the stick on different parts of it (just the tip, only the base etc) so i want to make some attempts with that too.
-
The thing that baffles me is that i cant seem to be able to keep the horizon straight for the life of me
I have had the same problem before. I don’t remember how I have overcame this. At that time I think I was watching at HUD while AAR. Now I only gaze at the body of the tanker.
-
I remember taking apart the WH and lightly sanding (perhaps too heavily, oops) the contacting surfaces and replacing the grease with an improved one and the stick felt much better. And I think I had one of the better examples to start with. Center “stiction” as it’s called is one of the known issues with the device.
That being said the job of staying within refueling parameters is never ending. There is no final solution to control on or near the boom. I liken AAR to flying inside a box. You bounce against the walls as you reach your personal limits of error. The goal is two fold, shrinking the box and reducing the frequency of hitting the edge. The principle of bracketing is important. When the left limit is reached it’s necessary to add no less than the required right input to reverse the situation. Accept that it’s a bounce and not a perfect input but always demand that the correction is lower in magnitude than before (to some acceptable small amount). As the movements are slower take the opportunity to shrink the box of limits in proportion. In the acceptable condition you’re bouncing occasionally around in a small box and that’s good enough.
It’s not good enough to shrink the box without the corresponding reduction in violence of inputs. That just leads to a bumblebee in a film canister. Reduction of input size every reversal likewise without shrinking the box is just this slow wide sweeping back and forth. And I guess the last thing is to appreciate the delay between your input and its result. When you add throttle or bank by the time you see it just barely beginning to work it’s time to take most of it right out again. Position comes from speed comes from your input.
Posture-wise the airplane doesn’t perform any differently based on how hard you grip the stick. Muscle tension isn’t a primary input. Fine motor control usually works better in a more relaxed state than what we find ourselves accidentally in during AAR.
-
Ok ive tried air refuelling with the warthog for the first time and it’s… challenging. As in impossible.
The slightest touch on the stick translates in a bank. I cannot keep the damn horizon straight, and it has to be bullseye straight in order to stay still under the belly of that Kc. If i even have a little of a jagged line on one side and i think of touching it on the other, simply the .01 bank on one side moves to the other.
Now how do i solve this? Modifying curves? Deadzoning? GITing GUD?
If you hold / grip the stick like you’re supposed to (closing your fist around the handle), I guess your control inputs will be much too large. Using a Cougar myself I’m only touching the very base of the stick with the thumb and two fingers when doing AAR, that’s the only method I’ve found that’ll work with my Cougar (which has a lot of “slop” around the center position).
No idea if this will work with the WT stick too, but I’ll find out once my cougar dies for good and the replacement HOTAS warthog reports for duty. I’ve been tempted to try the new stick while the cougar still plods on, but I’m afraid of losing all of my BMS settings / device orderings / axis assignments by doing so.
All the best, Uwe
-
Ok, for the first time in my life i managed to AAR. Im leaving here the way i did so that maybe it could be of any help to anyone else trying to get the hang of it.
I created a tactical engagement where the tanker goes back and forth on open sea for 360nm on a 360/180 axis (20A/300kn). Placed an AWACS to get vectors and off i went to try and engage the nasty flying gas pump. I dont think i got all the way up to Russia as per FPL, but lucky as i might have been it didnt get long to achieve. Now ill run this home brewed scenario a few times just to get the hang of it and then ill try my luck with the vanilla training mission and see what changes.