homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Falcon 4.0 Refuel tips

Nothing too new here, but new people join, experienced pilots forget, everyone could use a refresher, etc...

If a video would help with this, I can make one...but a whole lot of the success or failure of a retry attempt comes in the initial join. If you can execute that smoothly, you'll be more relaxed and the whole refueling process seems easier.

Open the door, call the tanker, note which way he's giong and pull a lead turn on him to get behind. As early as you can, lock him up in dogfight override to get range and closure information in your HUD. The old "rule of thumb" is to keep your closure rate in knots at or below your distance from the tanker in hundreds of feet once you're inside a mile. If you watch the indicator in the hud, the distance reads miles until you get inside 6000 feet. Then it drops 59, 58, etc...indicating hundreds of feet. Nice coincidence - that's also where you want to aim your closure rate to be at least while you're learning to be stable around the tanker. I tend to fly a much higher closure than that until I get inside 1000 feet. I'll probably still have 80-100 knots until 1000 feet.

If you overshoot the tanker, DO NOT throw the brakes out and get him to "catch up" to you. Instead, keep the power on and pull up a thousand feet and do S-turns at refuel speed until the tanker gets in front of you. You will spend FAR more time if you throw the brakes out and end up at 200 knots trying to claw your way back to 320 when you don't have enough gas to use the burner. It takes a LONG time to build speed from 200 knots at 20,000+. Pull up and turn 45 degrees. Look back over your "forward" shoulder (ie if you turned right, look over left shoulder). When you see tanker move out from your 6 towards your 7 (or 5, depending on your turn) o'clock, reverse the turn and rejoin. If you _really_ overshot, go right 45 for 30 seconds, then do a 90 left for 60 seconds and then rejoin. Dropping too much speed or making too radical a turn (ie a 360) will put you miles behind the tanker and take you 10 minutes to rejoin.

Your goal is to "stop" (0 closure) a hundred feet or so behind the tanker and at or slightly above his level - that's your precontact position. When you get there, and can maintain a 0 closure, note the FUEL FLOW setting it takes to do so. Judging based on your hand position on the throttle is not accurate enough, nor is the RPM gauge (plus it's harder to see). Any time you make a correction, try to return to that power setting (fuel flow).

You'll be cleared to contact position. Stretch your fingers out, make fists with your toes, blink, take a deep breath and relax. Drop down to refueling altitude and _just_ _barely_ nudge the throttle forward. You should see only a couple of hundred pph chane in the fuel flow. A clean, empty jet will be in the neighborhood of 2000 flow to hold position. When you're on altitude for tanking up, just move the throttle a fraction of an inch forward and WAIT. You will pick up a knot or two of closure. Once the boom passes overhead so close you think you could touch it, nudgethe throttle BACK that fraction of an inch and youi should coast back down to zero closure. It may not be realistic, but keep the dogfight lock on. Maybe you're different, but I've found that in the sim a closure/separation of less than 4 knots is not easily seen "quickly" when I'm concentrating on the positioning lights - due to our limited view of the world, there's not enough "change" in the visual picture.. By this I mean that I can be "in position" and think I'm holding...but my speed might start to fall (or climb) and I usually don't see the tanker visually moving until I get to around +/- 4 knots. When that happens I need to make a fairly large throttle correction which means making a large counter correction once I start closing, etc. If I can keep my closure rate on the HUD and include it in my visual scan, I can see a +/- 1 knot change and adjust accordingly. Sure I could watch airspeed, but the tanker does tend to vary a bit.

I like to call up the DED bingo page (list-2 on the ICP) so I can see my fuel quantity without having to click around the cockpit. Plus, the DED works in the 3D pit (trackIR) whereas the totalizer doesn't.

I never opened the door for refueling. What does it change?

For one, it should (and will) be mandatory - I don't think in 1.0.6 you'll get fuel with the door closed.

Two, it should (and will) damp control inputs to reduce overcontrolling

Three, it allows visual indications of refueling status - ready, taking fuel, lost connection

Teej, thanks for posting. The more stuff the old hands post, the easier it will be for us noobs to get up to speed.

Let's face it, even if one has memorized the manual, it would still be the same as if the USAF just gave a manual to prospective Viper pilots, and then let them take the plane into combat.

Thanks Teej, cant wait for the patch.

Great 1st post, very helpful.

Aaaaand this is how we party.

http://www.magsairsoft.com/1stick.wmv

Starting from roughly pre-contact, I make the slow crawl in and then take on ~ 5000 pounds in 1 contact (You can see the flashing 'fuel' at the beginning along with the blue "RDY" indicating door is open but no contact. When contact is made the green NWS light comes on. If you disconnect, it goes to the DSC light at the bottom then back to RDY until you make contact again. It stays green at the end because it was a full tank disconnect (59xx pounds in the D-model in the training mission).

Teej .... thanks for the posts and movie . Nice to see your still at your usual High Standard .

Cheers

Heh. I've always enjoyed the AREF features in a good sim...going back to the first time I recall it being implemented - "Strike Aces" back when games still came on floppies.

Excellent stuff on what I think is the most difficult thing to do in F4, F4:AF.

And yes, that includes landings...

I'm pretty sure Keith Rosenkranz would agree about stretching & deep breathing during refueling, it does get a little tense even in a simulator. I cannot imagine how r/l pilots do this at night, at night in a storm over the Atlantic ocean while there are other aircraft waiting for gas. Talk about pressure.

Thanks Teez, well done.

Great thread -- hopefully it can improve my lamentable efforts in refuelling (even allowing for 1.0.6).

I remember a documentary on Discovery a few years ago where a senior USAF officer said the biggest threat to airmen during Gulf War 1 was during refuelling and the sheer number of Allied aircraft around. He said he was surprised there had not been a mid-air collision.

Hwy Teej,


Excellent post! Please put up a Video. Again, Fantastic post.

Hey Teej,

After reading your tips, I was able to take on 5,000+ lbs of fuel on the realistic settings. Previous to this I was never even able to get anywhere close enough to even think about it.

Thanks again for the great post...

As my handle implies, I used to be a boom operator on KC-135A tankers, during the eighties.

Fighter pilots are drilled in formation flying from the beginning, and pulling into position for refueling isn't THAT much different, with the exception of the turbulence thrown back by the tanker. The Eagle drivers out of Bitburg scared the heck out of me the first time I hooked up with them. They went from the pre-contact position, about fifty feet back, to in position for a plug in about two seconds.

Eagles and Vipers aren't too difficult to plug. There is a small slipway, though boomers aren't supposed to use it. Phantoms and 'Varks are nightmares with their eight by six in pop-up receptacles . . . aarrgghh!!

I tried the refueling training mission in realistic mode, but have problems.
First, when being right behind the tanker, I have trouble keeping the right altitude.. .its almost as if the tanker is producing turbulence.

Second, I tried to open the refueling door (shift+ctrl+r), and expected that a) I get better control (like when you put the gears down), b) the lights in the cockpit (where the NWS light is) would light up and c) I could see the opened door from outside. But the key seems to have no effect!?

Any hints on what I�m doing wrong?

Pipper,

They've already been identified as issues and WILL be fixed in patch ver 1.06 due out.....April???

CloudyIFR

I just identified the root of all evil :-)

It was ICQ that stole all the shift+ctrl+key combinations! I did now check all running tools for hotkeys and either disabled them or assigned them to other keys.

Hi Teej,

Thanks for the tip and the video!! I can't seem to hold it steady enough despite not obviously changing altitude or longitudinal position on the tanker.

@C3PO et al: I find that if I get a disconnect due to very slightly excessive speed, the tanker calls "UP" afterwards. I know my altitude did not cause the disconnect, so why the "UP" call?? I have to pull away from the tanker and re-join for it to re-connect. If I was to move up whilst connected (purposely), then this would result in a disconnect, so what's with the UP command (even though my altitude didn't cause the disconnect)? Is the boom operator suicidal?!

--TangoShadow