Why is refueling in simulators so hard?

The Hornet uses the drogue and probe method of refuelling, so it'd be better to practice with the Mirage, don't you think?

don't have it. some times i make su-33 refuel practise also.

AAR is hard for those that, don't have practice. To do AAR you need hours trying, hours training. It's not simple as you think. "Let's do it here.." No, it's not, you need preparation, practice to do. When you learn how to do Air to Air Refueling you can do it even at night without the NVG, It's pretty easy when you have 50-100 hours of AAR. My tip is, practice and read the manual to know how to do AAR, don't let us see you doing AAR with Master Arm and GUN PAC on.. I have a video about it, but it's not in english, if it was, I would send you.

What manual?

What manual?

Not him of course,

but if I had to guess.

**DCS World**\Mods\aircraft\A-10C\Doc\DCS A-10C Flight Manual EN.pdf

the air refueling procedure is explained on page 493.:thumbup:

That only happens when you're too far away from the boom... (or after a given time, i think).

... or after a GIVEN TIME ... -> Why :joystick:

(especially if I am really just ready for contact)

Is there any mission editor workaround to stop this behaviour?

P.S.

There are no pages about air refuling in the F-18 Doc right now. I am relieved it is not yet implemented for the F-18, I do not need to master it. :smilewink:

P.S.S

Besides the necessary training the most important factor I missed up until now was the need to trim your plane for altitude. Just finished my first successfull refueling of the F18. :-)

I just tried my first air refueling missions today, in a couple of different planes.

Hole

Eeeeee

Shhhhhhh ... yeah

I never thought it would be that hard.

While I get that there is wake turbulence, we are offset from the tanker by, what, 30 feet or so. It almost feels like it would be easier in a shallow descent to stay out of the tanker's wake.

Question, does anyone use auto-throttle, altitude-hold, or any other auto-pilots during fueling?

 

Question, does anyone use auto-throttle, altitude-hold, or any other auto-pilots during fueling?

That's not going to work, you are constantly correcting for movement and position and also allowing for more power for the weight as the fuel is added.

One day you will, we wont be flying it tho.

you're surprised that trained pilots with hundreds or thousands of hours can refuel IRL, and you can't sit in your armchair and practice hand/eye coordination for a few hours and crack it?, i think you should be shopping for a games console not a sim.

It's a simulator, why do you think it should be easy?

Sorry to be negative but there's enough dumbing down of real life elsewhere on the market, probably cost you less as well.

t1mb0b: Spread some love - why rag a guy out who says he finds A2A hard when almost everyone who plays DCS acknowledges it is one of the hardest things to do in the game? The OP does not request or suggest that ED makes A2A easier or anything, they simply ask if anyone uses the built in things in the game already when they do A2A....

Give him some help. Acknowledge that they are simply at the start of a fun learning curve. Offer some constructive guidance.... OR say nothing.... To give them grief serves no purpose other then to be selfish and spread negativity. I get it - these are stressful times.

Rex - Keep at it. It is very rewarding when you get it down and will give you plenty of confidence later in the game to do many things. There are plenty of videos online to show you the 'ins and outs' so check some of those out. It gets better with practice so keep at it and you will feel the satisfaction once you learn how. Happy flying friend. Good luck.

Question, does anyone use auto-throttle, altitude-hold, or any other auto-pilots during fueling?

Air-to-air-refueling is hard. There are a few documentaries about real life fighter pilots with instructors in the back seat. They've been flying their jets on a tight schedule, they've done a lot of formation flying, and when they get to the tanker - they look every bit as noobish as we do in DCS. :D

I don't use any kind of autopilot for AAR in DCS and I think doing so would be counter-productive. On the contrary, all the controls will see constant manual inputs; they just never stand still and there's no control equilibrium during refueling.

In order to get the control oscillations down and make it look easy, there is a secret, though.

It's called "practice, practice, and more practice" :smartass:, with the only true secret being: after a while and definitely no sooner than after several days, it will suddenly "click" and at some point your muscle memory will kick in.

It's like learning to ride a bike. People can give you all kinds of advice, but you just have to do it until your brain catches up in a way that your muscles seem to start to work on their own.

Of course there are dozens of helpful tips, ideas and concepts that may help you get it done. Ultimately, though, there's just no way of cheating yourself out of practice, practice and more practice. ;)

I found out that extending my Warthog Hotas stick by 75mm using extension from MFG, everything just came so much smoother. Without extension, regardless of non-linear curves I just could not keep up with the corrections required around the center.

Also make sure that you angle the stick so that when you are pulling towards you, the joystick actually moves towards you and not side. It doesn't take much to cause circular oscillation as pulling back may cause right bank and correcting back then introduces left bank if your "force vector" and joystick are not aligned.