DCS: F-14 Air to Air Refueling Tutorial

Red, there will eventually be a KA-6D AI model available indeed!

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Thank you for the video.

Does the wake turbulence of the tanker affect the refuelling much?

It will do if you don't get your approach right , get me every time but im rubbish at refueling :)

Great vid! I need a lot of practice in order to improve my refueling capabilities with the Tomcat. :thumbup:

It will do if you don't get your approach right , get me every time but im rubbish at refueling :)

Hornet isn’t a tanker, Super Hornet is :smilewink:

Hey all, I have an issue with contacting the tanker. I have tuned the frequency in manually and I have also used Jestar to tune for me, and I can see him doing that. But whenever I call the tanker, I get no response. I would appreciate your help. And yes my radios are on ;)

Press Ralt+ radio button if tuned on Radio 1

Press Rctrl+ radio button if tuned on Radio 2 ;)

Excellent video again Mav, well done. You make it look so easy and smooth.

One question: You emphasised how important trimming the aircraft is. Do you also trim in the horizontal (aileron), especially when the tanker is banking? I find I get laterally unstable as I near the basket.

Cheers!

Scotch

The only thing I didn’t see mentioned was AFCS. Do you use any?

Also, for those not using track IR, it’s really hard to see under the top frame of the canopy for a point of reference on the refueling aircraft. The canopy frame makes things in close proximity difficult to see. If I zoom out too much I get fish eyed.

Great video, thanks!

it’s really hard to see under the top frame of the canopy for a point of reference on the refueling aircraft. The canopy frame makes things in close proximity difficult to see. If I zoom out too much I get fish eyed.

Agree! :thumbup:

Ive only managed to tank 500 lbs so far after 1 hours plus trying.. I just can't seem to get me lined up with it properly.

The FA-18C is super easy for me, the F14 is painfully difficult.

Will Keep on trying though!

Do you have some axis tuned for this Maverick? If I only look at my joystick the fluctuations are all over the place. I can't make fine adjustments.

Ive only managed to tank 500 lbs so far after 1 hours plus trying.. I just can't seem to get me lined up with it properly.

 

The FA-18C is super easy for me, the F14 is painfully difficult.

Will Keep on trying though!

 

 

Do you have some axis tuned for this Maverick? If I only look at my joystick the fluctuations are all over the place. I can't make fine adjustments.

I share your pain. The Hornet is incredibly easy for me as well mainly due to it's stability. I am all over the place with the Tomcat and just cannot get it trimmed up and stable. It seems that every throttle or stick movement needs trim adjustment which just sends me in an infinite chase for stability.

I even tried cheating a bit by using the autopilot. I thought I could use altitude hold to at least get me nice and stable but even the Tomcat's autopilot fluctuates wildly before becoming stable so that didn't work.

Interesting to hear others experiences with the F-14 tanking. Personally I have had the best success with this aircraft than any other DCS aircraft in A-A refuelling.

Find it super smooth to just inch up to the basket and then sit there filling up to cutoff. Granted it takes tiny movements and I have a VKB with extension and +14 curves and I am hunched over in VR to see under the canopy rail the whole time (my neck!), but smooth is the way.

I also tank in BOMB mode wing sweep so not sure if that's making a difference. In any case I actually enjoy tanking now - fly up there and am usually plugging in 1st or 2nd go now and sitting there till full so super-happy.

I guess I would suggest sweeping those wings, get her trimmed off the tankers wing then inch her in. Tiny corrections and just letting her settle seems to work well.

I’ve had some luck taking off the IL and off the Viking. Always seem to get to 12,200. Jester says “that should quench our thirst”, but I can’t get it to take any more, even after 10 minutes on the basket.

Can’t seem to have any luck refueling off the 135 at 26,000. Nose just won’t settle down for me.

One thing that has helped a little for me is just a tiny bit of speed brake. Seems to make it a little easier to manage the sensitive thrust settings. I’m typically using around 40 sweep. No luck all the way forward or in auto.

Oh, for vampire, I was having the same problem so I sat a little forward and stretched up a little high to center my view, then I sat back and relaxed.... it was like lowering my seat and it helps with the view.....

Otherwise the canopy frame is a real issue for refueling in VR.

So I found a couple things that helped. Bomb mode on wings for sure, and I reduced the saturation on my pitch and roll x and y axis by 25. Also getting the info bar on the bottom (ctrl+y) so I can actually read my speed was arguably the biggest help. Not having speed or altitude on the hud is dare I say....barbaric?!

Anyway, finally got hooked up was able take on 10k+ lbs of gas on 1 try.

I’ve had some luck taking off the IL and off the Viking. Always seem to get to 12,200. Jester says “that should quench our thirst”, but I can’t get it to take any more, even after 10 minutes on the basket.

 

Can’t seem to have any luck refueling off the 135 at 26,000. Nose just won’t settle down for me.

 

One thing that has helped a little for me is just a tiny bit of speed brake. Seems to make it a little easier to manage the sensitive thrust settings. I’m typically using around 40 sweep. No luck all the way forward or in auto.

Check your IFR probe switch in "EXTD-ALL"

Victory, is there an usual altitude and airspeed refueling was normaly done (with the cat)?

Victory, is there an usual altitude and airspeed refueling was normaly done (with the cat)?

220-300, with 250 the sweet spot depending upon the platform. The KC135 setup in the IA missions is around 350, it's way too fast.

Thank you very much!

Altitude depending on anything else?

220-300, with 250 the sweet spot depending upon the platform. The KC135 setup in the IA missions is around 350, it's way too fast.

Yes!! Thank you!! I was able to finally hook up for the first time once I slowed the speed of the tanker down! Maybe it was just luck but the slower speed seemed to make things more stable.

Here are a few tips that I discovered...

In the ME, I set the speed of the tanker to 317kts at 15,000ft and 344kts at 20,000ft which gave in-game IAS of 250 kts.

Also, a little bit of a cheat that helped me with more of an exact awareness of my speed was to hit LCTRL+Y to bring up the bottom info bar. It displays your speed which for me, gave me more of an exact control over it and allowed me to better match the tanker. This will help until I get more proficient.

Yes I think setting a decent speed for the tanker is what helped me so much with tanking also (I knew it wasn't my flying skill that suddenly improved lol).

Been running a custom mission downloaded from the User Files page for a patrol of the Gulf with random enemy spawns and it only had a little Viking which meant I couldn't full up multiple times, so swapped it out for the KC-130 flying at 250IAS. So now just launch, AB up to the tanker, fill up and go patrolling, tank and repeat till outta ammo.

Had usually always tanked off the default tankers in missions in the past and yes at that faster speed it was really twitchy. It seemed strange the first time I tanked at the slower speed - was like hmm why is this so stable/easy?

^^^

Made a world of difference. Thanks

Thank you! I tried for hours to connect and ended up splashing about 10 tankers in the process out of rage. After watching your video I was immediately able to connect and after two disconnects was finally able to take on 15K of fuel and complete a transfer. I feel like superman! Your channel has a new sub.

Interesting!!! I can’t seem to stay connected long enough to take fuel. It’s like there is zero tolerance in the line. I inch up, connect and jester AI will say taking fuel then bloop disconnect. Also seems like there’s some kind of suck hole once connected, I can inch up ever so slightly connect and then it seems like the hose pulls me forward quickly causing me to move out of the formation Spot. Like others the Hornet wasn’t to difficult and I’m having no issue getting connected, just can’t stay connected.

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Interesting!!! I can’t seem to stay connected long enough to take fuel. It’s like there is zero tolerance in the line. I inch up, connect and jester AI will say taking fuel then bloop disconnect. Also seems like there’s some kind of suck hole once connected, I can inch up ever so slightly connect and then it seems like the hose pulls me forward quickly causing me to move out of the formation Spot. Like others the Hornet wasn’t to difficult and I’m having no issue getting connected, just can’t stay connected.

 

 

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That's strange, I regularly sit there filling from 5k lbs up to 20k lbs no problems. You are supposed to drive fwd after contact a few feet anyway to start the fuel flowing IRL, but you don't want to be sitting back at full hose extension and hoping for the best, drive forward several meters and up slightly then hold position.