AAR beginner questions

[freemind]

Hi there,

since a week or so I’m trying AAR without success. I have a Hotas Cougar I bought used on Ebay. Flying with it is okay so far but I can only compare it my old MS Sidewinder Forcefeedback Pro, just a bit stiffer. No curves, just deadzone set to 2 as I feel it becomes to erratic without.

I tried out the Refueling setting Easy - and this is way to simple. Does it make sense to set it “Simplified” first, try it out a few times and then switch to realistic?

Also should I upgrade my throttle to TUSBA? I find it very hard to keep the speed at 300 knots. I often overshoot. PIO is another problem but as far as I see it the overshooting is the bigger one.

Any input/help appreciated.

[Planehazza]

@freemind:

Hi there,

since a week or so I’m trying AAR without success. I have a Hotas Cougar I bought used on Ebay. Flying with it is okay so far but I can only compare it my old MS Sidewinder Forcefeedback Pro, just a bit stiffer. No curves, just deadzone set to 2 as I feel it becomes to erratic without.

I tried out the Refueling setting Easy - and this is way to simple. Does it make sense to set it “Simplified” first, try it out a few times and then switch to realistic?

Also should I upgrade my throttle to TUSBA? I find it very hard to keep the speed at 300 knots. I often overshoot. PIO is another problem but as far as I see it the overshooting is the bigger one.

Any input/help appreciated.

Keep it on the realistic setting, you’ll be glad of it later. Does you cougar have any mods? Personally, I could never AAR on a stock cougar; it’s simply too inaccurate and the throttle is very sticky. It really is a case of lots of practice. Try approaching from an angle so you can visually guage speeds/closure better, and remember: lots of little corrections, not big ones.

[freemind]

@Planehazza:

Keep it on the realistic setting, you’ll be glad of it later. Does you cougar have any mods?

Not so far. Which ones do you recommend?

@Planehazza:

Try approaching from an angle so you can visually guage speeds/closure better, and remember: lots of little corrections, not big ones.

I tried it with little corrections but now somehow feel that with bigger corrections - constantly working on the throttle - it works more easy. I’m near the boom at 300, then it slows me down to 298 and suddenly I’m at 305 and to far off all of a sudden. Very frustrating.

[Planehazza]

@freemind:

Not so far. Which ones do you recommend?

I tried it with little corrections but now somehow feel that with bigger corrections - constantly working on the throttle - it works more easy. I’m near the boom at 300, then it slows me down to 298 and suddenly I’m at 305 and to far off all of a sudden. Very frustrating.

Yeah you’ll be surprised at just how much faster 301Kts is compared to 300 when that close to the tanker. The throttle response is not like a car - it doesn’t react instantly to the throttle movement. You need to practice moving the throttle more than you need then dropping it back.

As regards to mods, there are things you can do with greases or teflon tape etc to get rid of the stiction effect:

http://cougar.flyfoxy.com/mods.php#smooth

https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?14329-Throttle-Fix-for-Control&highlight=stiction

[Redshift20]

@freemind:

Not so far. Which ones do you recommend?

I tried it with little corrections but now somehow feel that with bigger corrections - constantly working on the throttle - it works more easy. I’m near the boom at 300, then it slows me down to 298 and suddenly I’m at 305 and to far off all of a sudden. Very frustrating.

Operations around the tanker are easy when you break it down into this: you’re flying formation on a slightly larger aircraft than usual. If you can learn to maintain a visual sight picture then everything else becomes easy, as you simply use power to hold position. If you notice the tanker moving foward on the canopy you need to increase thrust and if you see it moving aft you need to reduce thrust. Simply think, power for visual sight picture. Airspeed is used to crosscheck, but not much more than that. Your focus should be simply maintaining the visual sight picture.

Observation, notice the positioning of the fighter and maintain that sight picture when you’re waiting for your turn to fuel.

Pre-contact, notice the positioning of the HUD and the Boom, now drive forward into position and then use power to stay there.

Boom limits. Maintain the sight picture once you’re in position: it’s all in the throttle. Try adjusting your axis if you feel your throttle isn’t sensitive enough so you have a little more precise control over power. You’re running a Cougar which is one of the best sticks for Falcon you should be able to do this no problem.

[Darkman]

Friction wheel on the base of the throttle to the right (making it looser) will help you make finer adjustments.

Probably the best advice is to focus on the tanker, not your HUD. Forget about speed and the horizon, switch the HUD off and just try to fly formation on the tanker. If all you are looking at is the tanker you’ll soon learn what the ideal position is underneath it. Practise flying to that position and staying there and you’ll hook up and stay hooked up, even in a turn.

AAR is just flying close formation. The more you practise, the better your formation flying skills will become.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

Here’s another one by Dee-Jay, who originally suggested the HUD off method of learning when I first started:

[MorteSil]

This post is deleted!

[Agave_Blue]

Practice, practice, practice. Realistic mode only please. And more practice.

Eventually it gets easier.

[Guest]

My 2 cents:

1. Use realistic in everything. It’s no use developing the skills and muscle memory on one “setting” only to have to re-learn stuff once you increas the realism “setting.”

2. Pause TIR or fly with it OFF. I find it’s easier to gauge tanker “drift” when your monitor picture does not move around. I pause TIR and re-center my view (press 3 twice) as I come close to the tanker.

3. At first, you will be looking at your HUD constantly… once closer to the tanker (pre-contact position and contact position), you should adjust based on tanker “drift.” Note that while I say “tanker drift,” it’s really you that’s drifting but with a stable monitor picture (see #2), it’ll look like the tanker’s drifting.

4. Practice, practice, and practice. A lightly-loaded F-16 will be a bit more “twitchy” on the controls than a heavy one. You’ll need to know roughly where in your throttle range you can hold a certain speed.

5. Anticipate. You don’t “stabilize” at an altitude once you reach that altitude, you start that maneouver well before. Same thing for A-A refuelling. You’ll need to “catch” your aircraft at the right moment. Too slow and tanker drifting forward? I go to full-mil for a couple of seconds to bump up the speed, but even before the jet moves forward, I retard the throttle past the “sweet spot” for a few seconds, then go to the sweet spot. The jet will be a few seconds late but it’ll go forward, slow down, then hold it’s speed. If I’m still too far back, I do this again. Depending on how far back I am, I may prolong the full-mil burn a little bit and not retard too far or too long.

I used to think you can just move the throttle forward and keep it there and the jet will hold speed. Not so. It’ll only hold speed at a certain point in the throttle range, and even for the same aircraft, this point will move depending on your current configuration. The trick is finding where that point is, then going past that point to speed up, going before that point to slow down, then going back to that point to keep speed.

6. Be aware of your mental state and body tension. When you’re too “tight,” you’ll be PIO-ing a lot or overshooting. Sometimes it’s best to back off, stabilize at the boom, then approach again. Even while on the boom, it helps to wiggle your toes or curl/un-curl your fingers. I sometimes even make punching movements just to get the tension out of my elbows. BREATHE!!

I’ve personally found A-A refuelling practice to be a good way of forcing myself to relax. I found that I can’t tank when my body’s really tense, so if I want to connect, I have to force myself to relax.

[freemind]

Thank you all for your input! Still not sure about the Cougar and if I need to modify it with a hall sensor (at least the thrust), or if it is possible without.

I think this advice sound very reasonable and I will try it out as soon as possible:

@Redshift20:

If you notice the tanker moving foward on the canopy you need to increase thrust and if you see it moving aft you need to reduce thrust. Simply think, power for visual sight picture. Airspeed is used to crosscheck, but not much more than that. Your focus should be simply maintaining the visual sight picture.

[8.JG26_Cougar]

Regarding that, i found it difficult to move my x-65 throttle in these small ranges, so i so it another Way:
Since You are able to open your airbrake not just “full out-full in” but in small moves as well, i approach the tanker with airbrake about 25% open and match his 300 as good als i can with the throttle. When i get close, i dont touch My throttle at all, instead i make small Speed changes by opening or closing the airbrake. I found this method much more precise than moving the throttle around too much.
But: Nor so easy to do in CAT III and the Tanker at FL240

[Agave_Blue]

@freemind:

Thank you all for your input! Still not sure about the Cougar and if I need to modify it with a hall sensor (at least the thrust), or if it is possible without.

I think this advice sound very reasonable and I will try it out as soon as possible:

I’ve heard others have had fine control issues with Cougar throttles. Something to do with ‘resolution’ (?) 8-bit?

OTOH people have learned to AAR with simple, low quality ‘thumb-throttle’ joysticks and even (reportedly) with game controllers

[freemind]

@Agave_Blue:

I’ve heard others have had fine control issues with Cougar throttles. Something to do with ‘resolution’ (?) 8-bit?

OTOH people have learned to AAR with simple, low quality ‘thumb-throttle’ joysticks and even (reportedly) with game controllers

So a TUSBA would be a solution?

I never played BMS with my MS Sidewinder. I might give it a try to sort this out.

[hoover]

My “enlightenment” w/r to AAR came when I started moving the throttle back and forth in a seesaw motion constantly while closely monitoring the visual picture (as others have pointed out). I’m on a stock and very sloppy cougar too.

Keep the “realistic” setting unless you want to re-learn everything once you progress.

Try the following (depending on loadout and remaining total weight of course):

• Line up behind the tanker, ignore the airspeed indicator

• Grip your cougar stick with only your index / middle finger and thumb near the bottom of the base (no full-fist grip like during normal flight). This will allow much more fine-grained control of the lateral movement of the plane

• if using head tracking, consider switching it off for the first couple of successful contacts (I have that FacetrackNoIR function mapped to F7 I think)

• Move the throttle up to (but not beyond, unless you’re really heavy) the first a/b stop, keep if there for a couple of seconds, retract the throttle to near idle, keep it there for a second, move it forward again

• rinse and repeat the previous step until you see you’re keeping a constant distance to the tanker. Ignore the HUD completely, you’ll notice when it’s working by the visual picture alone.

• Once you’ve done that, keep up the seesawing but lengthen or shorten the “throttle at rest” (either forward or backward) times depending on weather you want move towards or away from the tanker.

It may seem a bit awkward at first, but you’ll quickly discover that it’s much easier this way staying a ta constant speed (which means constant distance) using a stock cougar throttle.

Please let us know how you progress.

Uwe

[-Vandal-]

Great topic and the Youtube videos were inspiring. I too am unable to AAR at the moment but I am headed over to my game machine right now to practice. Thanks everyone for the tips!

[Guest]

@-Vandal-:

Great topic and the Youtube videos were inspiring. I too am unable to AAR at the moment but I am headed over to my game machine right now to practice. Thanks everyone for the tips!

When I was unable to tank, my buddies and I thought this was a myth. That you couldn’t do it outside of doing it in real life. There just isn’t that many cues when you’re sat down staring at a monitor vs. when you’re in the real thing. Those who claimed otherwise were liars, or were exceptionally skilled. Then it happened. We were able to get into position and stay there long enough for maybe two drops of fuel. That was it. Myth busted. It may have been a fluke, but it IS possible! Once that illusion was shattered, it was so much easier to be patient, to keep frustration at bay. Just try to re-create the fluke. Then re-create it again. And again. And again. Over time, we were able to connect more and more. 2 drops became 4 drops, then half the tank, then we were able to connect long enough to fill up totally. And this was in 4.32 with the really strong “tractor beam!”

4.33 came out and the “tractor beam” lost some of it’s power. But no matter. I was able to connect so many times now that I knew all I needed was to get used to the new parameters. I was able to connect twice as the tanker was turning back in 4.32, so surely I can manage straight-and-level in 4.33! And again, just practice, practice, and practice.

That last phrase… so easy to say when you can do it, words filled with so much wisdom. For those that have never connected before, it’s like an insult, like salt being rubbed into a wound. From someone who has felt that way before, what I can say is this: don’t be insulted, don’t be frustrated. You couldn’t ride your bike with no trainer wheels the first time you were on it; it will be the same for this. But keep at it and you’ll get there!

[-Vandal-]

@-Ice:

…Don’t be insulted, don’t be frustrated. You couldn’t ride your bike with no trainer wheels the first time you were on it; it will be the same for this. But keep at it and you’ll get there!

I’m trying Ice. I’m trying. In fact, due to this thread I’ve decided to practice it every day (my RL schedule permitting) until I get the hang of it. I really really want to be able to get some of that precious jet fuel (is it JP5 or JP8). =D

Anyway I spent about 45 minutes today at it and never connected. I’ll give it another go after dinner. I will say flying with the HUD off improved my approach. Also coming in at an angle made it easier to gauge the closure rate. It was pretty smooth up to about 3 boom lengths away. I didn’t have much problem matching the tanker’s heading even through a turn. More than anything its my oscillating up and down that seems to be the problem. So if I could just keep from getting vertically squirrely I think I’d be close to getting those first couple of drops!

[freemind]

Thank you all! Did practice almost every day this week. I will keep you posted.

[Fluke]

Do you fly multiplayer? If so, try flying close formation when the mission permits. You’ll be practicing the same skills used in AAR without making it a “chore”.

Because above all: it’s all about having fun while learning

[Guest]

@-Vandal-:

I’m trying Ice. I’m trying. In fact, due to this thread I’ve decided to practice it every day (my RL schedule permitting) until I get the hang of it. I really really want to be able to get some of that precious jet fuel (is it JP5 or JP8). =D

Anyway I spent about 45 minutes today at it and never connected. I’ll give it another go after dinner. I will say flying with the HUD off improved my approach. Also coming in at an angle made it easier to gauge the closure rate. It was pretty smooth up to about 3 boom lengths away. I didn’t have much problem matching the tanker’s heading even through a turn. More than anything its my oscillating up and down that seems to be the problem. So if I could just keep from getting vertically squirrely I think I’d be close to getting those first couple of drops!

My initial issues with tanking… once I could get in the proper vicinity… was that being so close to the tanker just felt so dangerous to me. I was right at the edge of panic, and that made me so tense. Like I said, relaxing is key. Heck, even now, I can connect to a KC-10 comfortably but a KC-135? I’m still not comfortable how close I need to be with the -135 in order to connect.

Pilot-induced oscillation? Recognize it for what it is, back off, stabilize, then come back in. It’s easier to correct when you’ve got some room to work with. Pretty soon, you won’t need that much time and space to “correct” the PIO.

I think the first thing you should practice, if you aren’t doing so already, is getting to the pre-contact position and staying there. If you are in that position and you can stay there for a few seconds, the tanker should clear you in. If you are in that position and you are stable in that position, all it takes is a quick burst of throttle to slide forward into the proper refuelling position. If you can’t get to the pre-contact position and if you can’t be stable in the pre-contact position, you’ll have a nightmare of a time once you’re under the tanker.