Not sure if this has been suggested yet, but what helped me improve was starting out with the refueling realism setting on the easy level and then progressed into the realistic setting. The medium setting (I believe it’s called “simplified”?) helped me a lot as I developed better anticipation of what happens during an A-A refueling procedure. Granted, taking off the training wheels and moving into the full realistic setting is still a big change, but I believe it helped me to finally master it in the end. It definitely didn’t hurt building my confidence on the medium setting either.
Also, as others have suggested, try turning off the HUD. Personally, I prefer to just learn to ignore the HUD and focus on the blank spaces instead of turning it off.
Good luck!