I can’t for the life of me maintain a constant speed and altitude. The F/A-18 is so freaking hard to trim to level flight and the throttle is extremely touchy and delayed. I’m not even close to getting hooked up.
@@erfguuipo8084 they cant possibly teach you how to fly the plane good enough to be able to try refueling in a single video. gotta put some hours on the stick first...but they have many videos teaching startup, taxi, takeoff, general flight and navigation. approach, landings you know..the basics.. in a few videos and only a couple hours of trying my luck i was able to fly steady speed on course and level, of course one could need more flight time(or even less) to take the feel of it ..though i still have work to do on my landings i can navigate and drop ordnance, maybe do some toe to toe dancing with an old mig21. got some.experience in.. then AND ONLY then could you think of trying something like that gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. and their videos are perfect. i like them very much they are doing great job of showing us stuff. they are short but precise and no superfluous thingies. they also show you the systems they operate and with wich buttons (with the default key mapping) so it makes things really easy when it comes to assigning buttons and switches on a HOTAS or any other controller..
@@erfguuipo8084 that's more a quirk of the plane you need to get used to though.... also things that might've been covered in a different tutorial since it's a broad aspect of flying not just for refueling.
I did mine in solo. Still haven’t completed it. Frankly I’m glad I haven’t done it publicly because it usually ends with me firing every last piece of equipment on my plane into the tanker.
I just finally got it today. Last night was formation flying practice and today hit it first try. Start first with learning to fly in formation with the tanker, changing locations around it and distances. Patience is the key. Just like the Gentleman said, you have to be completely relaxed. An hour or two fying with formation here or there helped me out with understanding this discipline. If I can learn it with a crappy logitech extreme 3d pro stick, you'll get it :D
I think it was the manual for Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces that gave the following helpful advice: "The bottom line is make small corrections, develop a sight picture of the correct position under the tanker, and one last thing.....Don't shoot the tanker!
Man, this shit is right bloody impossible. I can't believe those crazy ass guys do this in real life. Absolutely unreal. I wonder how many newly-minted pilots run out of gas trying to hook up when they first start learning. My best guess is they do it over an airfield, and when the fuel situation starts looking grim, they plunk it down hopefully before engaging glider mode.
Devil's Offspring new pilots do it in simulator first, and refueling the f18 isn’t as hard as the f16 for example because you can see the refueling probe, while in the f16 it goes behind the pilot and makes it even more difficult
I've been playing DCS for about a week, so far I've managed to take off, fly around a bit, arrive again at random places on the runway... and shoot down about 17 refueling tankers (since I started counting)... so much fun though... frustrating and fun
Mystic Aviator maybe you just tried pressing the communications menu button, that doesn’t work to speak with your wingmen or tanker if you are airborne with high fidelity models. To make this easier to explain: low fidelity model? Just press communications menu to speak to allied units. high fidelity models? when you are in the ground press communications menu to call for ground crew or to request takeoff, but I think this is different depending on the aircraft. When you are already flying, press (whatever radio systems your plane has) to transmit within the frequency you set up.
Tip for the people that are learning air to air refueling; Fingertip controls, dont grip the throtthe/stick with your whole hand. Just push with the fingertips. Makes it easier for small inputs
Yeah it's like that when you're new to AAR. I just started to learn AAR and i can say that don't "chase" the basket, you have to make throttle adjusting all the time and do very fine pitch adjusting, trim the plane, try not to roll and use rudder unless the tanker is turning. But it feels amazing when you learn the damn thing, suck up the fuel nicely and the tanker says "refuel complete". TL;DR just practice, watch youtube videos about it and try it yourself until you get it
Well at lest the hose does come out for you. I have NEVER EVER EEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEER managed to meme that damn hose to go out. For fucks sake !!! That is the stupidest game design EVER!
I find it much easier if you turn on autopilot and setting the attitude hold on once you get into precontact and just moving the throttles and making small adjustments on the stick. Also, using the refueling tank as a point of reference to stay in formation with the tanker.
You bank with the tanker, attitude hold allows you to make corrections with the stick, just don't yank on it aggressively. And it was attitude, altitude hold is useless for everything but cruising around.
Well done! Re-tanking the AV-8 still gives me nightmares. Of note, at the beginning of "Dr Strangelove" during the B-52 refueling sequence, the music playing is a Laurie Johnson orchestral arrangement of "Try a Little Tenderness". Indeed. So, that's what I hum while refueling, just to remind me.
Thanks Cap! Ive been flying DCS for about 6mo and have amassed nearly every module, few of which Ive used a lot. I have stuck with the 18 and have learned the weapons, radar, navigation etc, now its on to refuel. As with everything in DCS there is quite a learning curve and I refuse to get frustrated. I stick with it until I get it right. You always help with these things so cheers-yeah! Thank you!
Thanks for the tips on how to fly with the smallest inputs. What I find the most difficult is the throttle. I always overshoot the aircraft or fall behind, it is very very hard to find the right speed, and there is some lag in the engine response to take into account!
A tip - I put the Master ARM to SAFE and put a lock on the Tanker. This way I can see my closing velocity to the tanker as I am approaching. Once you know the Tanker speed and you get contact, I turn the Auto throttle on and pretty much relax. Also, practice formation flying with your wingman and get really close (get him to follow route and then you can formate on him/her). This helped me heaps.
Grim, i wish to thank you very much for your video tutorials. i have learnt everything i need about DCS f-18 with your help. you are honorable man indeed.
I will say that I’ve only flown a grand total of about 7 hours so far in DCS. I’m already successfully landing about 90% of my approaches on the carrier and 100% on land, but so far I’m 0 for 4 with air-to-air refueling attempts. Each of my 4 attempt lasted until I ran out of fuel or rammed the tanker intentionally when I really got frustrated. Even when landing on the carrier and on land, I’m having to constantly battle my controls to maintain straight and level flight and to maintain a slow and steady descent rate. I’m a private pilot and I’m used to flying the Cessna 172, which is super easy to trim for constant speed level flight and for a steady descent rate during approaches to land. In DCS, I’ve exclusively flown the F/A-18C. Everyone says that the F/A-18’s FCS makes it one of the easiest planes in DCS to maintain straight and level flight with minimal to no control inputs. So far I’ve haven’t found this to be the case at all, but I’m starting to suspect that the problem is my Warthog flight controls, not the the aircraft flight model for the F/A-18C. I have the TM Warthog stick & throttle and I’ve not been happy with their level of fine control. I’ve tried to retune their axis based on recommendations from others who use the TM WH controls to fly in DCS, but no matter what axis tune settings that I try, I can’t seem to find a setting that provides really good fine control of the aircraft. I decided to sell my Warthog controls and recently order the Virpil VPC Constellation ALPHA-R with the VPC MongoosT-50CM2 Base & the VPC Mongoose T50CM3 Throttle. They are currently with Fed Ex in Indianapolis, waiting to clear customs. I’m hoping they will help my flying in DCS.
Really appreciate your vids cap... learn alot from them. you'd think the tanker would announce his airspeed along with altitude when you check in. So you didn't have to guess the approach/matching speed.
Of course you're incapable of doing it. Aerial refueling isn't real. Think about it. "Yeah fly 300 mph and move 2 inches to the left." That's not a thing people can do.
that PIO ive mastered its my mind that wants to counter my plane goin everywhere. for some reason im able to stay on the tanker and refuel while goin all over the place its awesome when it happens cause its funny and yes i am most times able to recover while still connected to it
I'm f*cking impressed by you people who can refuel in the air. Started with DCS last year, I have no learned BVR, Dogfight, Landing, Taking off, landing on Carriers. But air-refuiling I just cant do. Thank you Grim reapers for your tutorials.
AAR is the best practice for learning smooth control of your aircraft that you can get, and it's the surest cure for ham hands. You will also find that this will transfer over to your flying in general, and bombing/gun runs, landing, etc. will be much smoother, too! Practice formation flying first. Just create a mission in the editor with a wing-man on a set course with varying turns, and fly along side him as best you can until you get the hang of it. You can even set up or download a practice refueling mission, and just fly formation with the tanker with a full tank of gas in your chosen plane until it becomes natural to you, then go for refueling by adjusting the fuel settings in the mission editor, or for that matter, fly formation until you run low on gas, refuel, then fly formation some more! At first, that tanker or wing-man is going to seem to bounce all over the map. Trust me, it's you, not them. Then as you practice, you're going to settle down more and more, until it's buttery smooth. Yes, it can be boring, and you will suck, but each day you will suck a little less, then suddenly it will "click" and fall into place, and you will feel like it's not hard at all. It's just a matter of building "muscle memory" and coordination. A neurologist once told me that the brain works in these sort of things like it's building a road. It keeps building neural pathways, (which we call "muscle memory, but that's inaccurate) until they are complete, and then just like opening a road to traffic once it's finished, it opens those pathways all at once, and you just suddenly make a leap in whatever you are trying to learn, creating "the click". You are going to have good days and "off" days, too, just keep at it. Some will pick it up quicker than others, your only rival in this is yourself, just work to be better than YOU were yesterday, and don't worry about how good someone else is. Don't get discouraged by UA-cam videos showing someone doing it perfectly, few people post their bad runs, and no one got it right on their first try, even real life pilots. (Take a look at the nose of a lot of real A-10C's for example, and note how banged up they are around the refueling door). And I do mean practice, this isn't something you are going to pick up in an hour. Just like learning to play a musical instrument, practice each day, not once a week or something. Even if it's just one run a day, you will improve, be patient! The more you consistently practice, the faster you will improve, an hour a day will make more progress than a half hour a day, but work to your schedule. Just for laughs, record your first attempt, so you can replay it when you get good at it and enjoy the show! :) Once you get good, practice it at night, then in rough weather, then in rough weather at night. :D Keep practicing, too, you can lose the skill. Just like the road analogy above, the brain will close and abandon a road if it isn't seeing any traffic there, and just like an unmaintained road, it will be a bumpy ride when you try to go there again. I haven't flown anything in DCS in quite some time, and am coming back to fly the F-18. I will likely have to start from scratch on AAR and formation flying, but by doing what I've advised, I'll get the skill back soon enough. Once you get the hang of it, keep practicing, at least every few days so you don't lose your edge. Keep that practice mission you made, or add AAR to new missions you create. There's a very good reason the USAF and the Navy have minimum flight hours for pilots each month to retain their flight status. All this goes for the throttle, too! A big part of AAR is throttle control. As mentioned above, the brain is building a roadway there, too. You need to coordinate both for good formation flying as well as AAR. Part of the learning curve is learning this coordination, each hand has to learn to work in unison with what the other hand is doing. You are learning how the plane reacts to throttle input as well as stick input. All planes will react to even small changes in throttle, and you have to learn the "feel" of it in the particular aircraft you are flying. Along with the reaction, there is the amount of lag in that reaction that you have to get a feel for too. You aren't just going to be able to hold the throttle steady and "park" behind the tanker. Don't forget, the weight of your plane is going up as fuel is added, so you are going to have to adjust for that, too. The tricky part is that you have to be adjusting the throttle not for what the plane is doing now, but for what it's going to be doing a moment from now. You need to be proactive with the throttle, not reactive. Just like pilot induced oscillation with the stick, you can fall behind with the throttle and get into a pattern of over correction and get in a real bind. That road is turning into a four lane highway pretty quickly, isn't it? The final piece of the AAR puzzle is trim. Going into AAR or flying in general becomes a lot more difficult when you are out of trim. Teach yourself to trim and stay in trim. An out-of-trim aircraft will fight you for control, and as the amount of out-of-trim condition will vary each time due to multiple factors, it greatly increases the learning curve, as the aircraft isn't going to be reacting the same way each time you attempt a maneuver. A well trimmed aircraft is a predictable aircraft, and a predictable aircraft is much easier to fly. Trim, trim, trim! A good practice technique for trim in DCS was taught to me by a R/L instrument flight instructor, he had me make final approaches and landings by adjusting trim only. It gave me a real feel for how trim affects the behavior of the aircraft. (And greatly improved my navigation and horrible landings, but that's a topic for a different post.) As for hardware, you can adjust the axis curves in the control settings to help out a bit, every joystick and throttle is different, not only in it's axis scale and "throw" (fulcrum length), but also spring tension, fit to your hand, etc. so don't just accept the default curves, play with it, and find what works for you. The only time it is too extreme is when it interferes with control of the aircraft in combat, really, but go easy with it, and adjust it a little at a time to see what effect it has for you. Something else that I do that may be helpful others, is I don't set the joystick perfectly square with my desk, it is rotated slightly to the left, (I'm right handed, lefties may want to rotate slightly right) just a couple degrees to follow the natural curve of my wrist and push of my arm. It really helps reduce fatigue and give me a more natural movement of my arm. (Kind of like angling the paper a little bit when writing or drawing.) The trick is to find the balance between comfort and accurate piloting, you still want forward to be forward, etc. Some joysticks have this "twist" built in, but most do not. YMMV, but give it a try. Finally, there are stick extensions available (primarily for the Warthog) or somewhat easily made if you have the tools and the skill set, that can drastically improve the fine control of the stick, but aren't a necessity for most people. If you have a programmable keyboard, you can create a macro for the tanker calls, etc. and save time and concentration away from your flying to make life easier too. There are also several voice command programs you can use to reduce this workload as well. Do what works for you. Believe it or not, just as in drawing, most joystick/throttle movement comes from your arm, not your wrist. You can use wrist movement for very small inputs, but you are really flying the plane with your arms, (or should be) your hands are just holding the controls. If you tense up on the controller with your hand, it restricts the movement of your arm, and you lose the ability for fine motor control. Relax your grip, your arm, and your shoulder if they start to tense up. The first indication you are tensing up will usually be a raised shoulder. If you are tensing up, you will see it in your performance with the aircraft long before you begin to feel it in stressed muscles. OK, a little long, but I hope it is helpful to some. This all can be applied to anything in the sim, too, you can create a landing mission that places you in the air near the runway for quick touch-and-go practice, static targets for gun runs, etc. The key is repetition, consistent practice makes perfect! TL;DR Adjust your HOTAS setup and axis curves, and practice, practice, practice!
The "Refueling Tanks" that you are calling are known as "Refuel Pods" or "Sgt. Fletcher Pods". I used to work at Depot on the Air Force C-130 family for 13+ years.
Holy shit I've tried my first refueling (I play VR, so i think it's even easier) just an hour ago and came by your video. I spent literally an hour wiggling around the basket, sipping drops of fuel from time to time. You made it so easy. Well done and great skills captain!
Great tutorial! I am guessing that this tutorial was made before wake turbulence was introduced. Have been practising with wake turbulence for the last months and is struggeling alot. The air around the tanker is so much more unstable. Guess I just have to keep practising. By the way, do you have wake turbulence activated when you are doing air to air refueling on the Grim Reapers missions?
I understand it's a minus when the pilot of the tanker plane dies of old-age, but does Navy consider that a plus if the other pilot finishes some novel while you're tanking?
The tanker seems to be jumping up and down for me, even taking taking slight turns. As if it was making fun of me. How come yours is flying so steady? Is the built-in tutorial mission bugged?
Im new to DCS so thank you for all the videos and tutorials. I noted in a previous vid you had no use for the slide above the red button on your hotas. I mapped mine to extend and retract the probe, maybe that would be useful unless you use it for something else now.
I started my DCS life with just the F-16 and flew it for over a year before I got the Hornet. The difference between the two is staggering. If you can in-air refuel in the Viper, the Hornet is 10x easier. It just is. I don't know if it's the difference between the basket type vs the boom type, but it was actually startling how much simpler and easier it was. The Viper is much harder to maintain speed because it's so fast. And the boom port is behind your head, so you got no visual on the actual contact. And when you get behind a tanker that is flying at 20k feet and in a straight line, you can use the auto-throttle to perfectly match speed and hold it.
I figured out what works for me using a T16000 HOTAS. Firstly, I set my pitch and roll dead zones to zero. I found that creating dead zones in my controls actually exacerbate the "ham fisting" issues. I prefer my aircraft to react to every single stick adjustment no matter how minute it is. Secondly, I use the Attitude hold to dampen just a tad bit. Thirdly, I do look at the basket because that's what I'm aiming for. Using peripheral vision or not looking at the basket as some have suggested, never made sense to me. To each his/her own I guess...😏
While the hornet may be one of the most complicated aircraft to fly, it’s the easiest to refuel by far. The F-15 is so much easier to fly, but refueling sucks.
I find it helps if you put your hand to the bottom of the stick and control it with your forefinger and thumb. If you do lose control, standard procedure is to go behind the tanker again and shoot it down in a fit of rage.
I give up edit: I fucking did it, after a lot of training of course, but I have some tricks that helped me a lot: 1)Use the radar to lock up the tanker and you can then see your relative speed with the tanker, you'll know if you are arriving to fast or if you can speed up, it's super useful when you are joining up with the tanker and it will prevent over speeding if you use it correctly 2)Engage altitude autopilot when you are close to the tanker, the altitude autopilot will set your altitude at first but I found out that it also made your controls feel more stiff after you move your stick a bit, it helps a lot with pilot induced oscillations and simply makes your plane feel more stable and more precise, this may be my personal preference though. If you make too big movements, it will disengage from this mode so it's only for precise and small movements
Only tried two times, Fai...Learnt what not to do twice... you can lock him up with A/A Radar and will tell you closure speed and distance. It might annoy the pilots with their cockpit beeping warnings at them though. I don't think it is a standard practice. I think TACAN can give same info. Make sure you tell the refueler to turn on TACAN in Mission editor Waypoint 0.
I'm having a lot of trouble with AA RF, but it's not my flying it's my curves... the joystick responce sends me dozens of feet in the wrong direction at the slightest touch. I haven't changed the curves yet i would lof to know whay CAP's curves look like (no pun).
Hello. So I can not figure out what I am doing wrong. I try and set up a simple mission to practice refueling. One F-14 and one tanker. However, when I pull up behind the tanker after making the initial call for fuel and the call that i am ready to hook up the basket never comes out. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? I have tried several different types of tankers with no success in getting the basket to deploy when I prompt the tanker.
If the tanker responds, then you have the right radio frequency--but if they don't deploy the basket, you aren't close enough. Don't fret it too much, even when everything works properly this shit is beyond "mere" insane-level difficulty.
How to you set up your throttle? How much dead zone? Do you add any curvature? I have tried a dead zone of 5 and the test of the axis as a straight 1:1 ratio with no curvature. But then I discovered that the afterburner detent on my Warthog throttle was out of sync with the afterburner in the F/A-18. The only way I found to fix it, was to make the throttle a slider and add a user curve. Then I had to adjust so that the black square moved to the left to align the detent with the afterburner in DCS. But by adjusting the far end of the axis, it made the earlier part of the axis steeper. So then I added a little curvature near the beginning of the axis. What I need up with is a gradual curve in the early range of the throttle. Then the middle range of the axis gets steeper, and then the last 3rd of the axis returns to about a 1:1 ratio. I’m not sure if this was the best solution. My throttle still feels very touchy and difficult to get fine adjustments. When I’m trying to maintain around 310 knots to match the speed of the tanker, I’ve found that I need about 88% to 90% RPM’s in the F/A-18. This requires me to have the throttle pretty close to the afterburner detent and with the adjustment zip made, that’s the steepest part of the axis. ‘ I may just get rid of the afterburner adjustment and live with it being a little out of alignment and return the axis to a 1:1 ratio with a little dead zone.
Wouldn't the pilot initiate the disconnect from the basket once fueling is complete? Seems odd how it just rips off of you. It should allow you to reduce speed and gradually break away, shouldn't it?
How do you hold speed so well? I was able to make contact finally but I keep either going too fast or too slow and lost contact again. I try to regulate my throttle with VERY light movements so I don't undershoot/overshoot with millimeters touches yet it still keeps happening. Really frustrating when you spent a whole lot of time just to get the probe in to begin with.
@@grimreapers True. I've gotten better since last I commented. I can't hold it for an entire refuel but just long enough. It feels like performing surgery but I'll get it soon enough :)
One thing that ALL pilots should do, that wasn't mentioned ... Set Tanker TACAN, so you have a bearing, range and altitude from your gauges, to find and intercept the tanker!
Same here, this is off-the-wall difficulty. All those "pwners" in the FPS game genre think they have "skill", well, midair refuelling is beyond skill. Skill only helps you when you're doing something that's... you know... Possible in the first place :)
And just when you manage to refuel midair, then turn on the vortex and everything starts again. When pilots refer to night carrier landings as the hardest thing, I cannot agree. I imaging myself getting vectored to the tanker, because I do not have enough fuel to land. That´s the moment to try the ejection seat.
I personally have not seen you guys use an air refueling plane on any of your missions. Is that something that is to cumbersome with so many planes? Or is it just too dangerous because the enemy could attack while you're refueling?
I could connect with tankers in the F16 most recently, I could get some fuel (2000lbs, about 1/3 the internal tank) but I disconnect very quickly due to, yknow, boom stuff. I'm pretty sure I could be better at refueling with baskets now, I'm going to hit up the Mirage free trial next.
I can’t for the life of me maintain a constant speed and altitude. The F/A-18 is so freaking hard to trim to level flight and the throttle is extremely touchy and delayed. I’m not even close to getting hooked up.
See if this helps: ua-cam.com/video/S9CqDPmI3bc/v-deo.html
that's because these tutorials do not tell you the crucial things to do. They are already experts trying to teach so they will prolly miss it.
@@erfguuipo8084 they cant possibly teach you how to fly the plane good enough to be able to try refueling in a single video. gotta put some hours on the stick first...but they have many videos teaching startup, taxi, takeoff, general flight and navigation. approach, landings you know..the basics..
in a few videos and only a couple hours of trying my luck i was able to fly steady speed on course and level, of course one could need more flight time(or even less) to take the feel of it ..though i still have work to do on my landings i can navigate and drop ordnance, maybe do some toe to toe dancing with an old mig21. got some.experience in.. then AND ONLY then could you think of trying something like that
gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run.
and their videos are perfect. i like them very much they are doing great job of showing us stuff. they are short but precise and no superfluous thingies.
they also show you the systems they operate and with wich buttons (with the default key mapping) so it makes things really easy when it comes to assigning buttons and switches on a HOTAS or any other controller..
@@erfguuipo8084 that's more a quirk of the plane you need to get used to though.... also things that might've been covered in a different tutorial since it's a broad aspect of flying not just for refueling.
I still remember my first air refuel... the whole server does as well.
lmao can relate
I think we can all relate
I will soon relate
I did mine in solo. Still haven’t completed it. Frankly I’m glad I haven’t done it publicly because it usually ends with me firing every last piece of equipment on my plane into the tanker.
@@MrCoolguy425 Hahaha glad I'm not the only one!
learning air refueling is SO HARD, every time I try it it always ends with me slicing the tanker's wing off with my cannon in frustration.
lol
I just finally got it today. Last night was formation flying practice and today hit it first try. Start first with learning to fly in formation with the tanker, changing locations around it and distances. Patience is the key. Just like the Gentleman said, you have to be completely relaxed. An hour or two fying with formation here or there helped me out with understanding this discipline. If I can learn it with a crappy logitech extreme 3d pro stick, you'll get it :D
I think it was the manual for Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces that gave the following helpful advice: "The bottom line is make small corrections, develop a sight picture of the correct position under the tanker, and one last thing.....Don't shoot the tanker!
Man, this shit is right bloody impossible. I can't believe those crazy ass guys do this in real life. Absolutely unreal.
I wonder how many newly-minted pilots run out of gas trying to hook up when they first start learning. My best guess is they do it over an airfield, and when the fuel situation starts looking grim, they plunk it down hopefully before engaging glider mode.
Devil's Offspring new pilots do it in simulator first, and refueling the f18 isn’t as hard as the f16 for example because you can see the refueling probe, while in the f16 it goes behind the pilot and makes it even more difficult
I've been playing DCS for about a week, so far I've managed to take off, fly around a bit, arrive again at random places on the runway... and shoot down about 17 refueling tankers (since I started counting)... so much fun though... frustrating and fun
Took me two years of experience to do it but man it feels good.
seems like shootin down the tanker with cannon is common reaction,I just did and came here for solution lol
Oh, I also put any remaining missiles in to the fucking thing!
Now try it inverted
Everytime my planes about to die from fuel loss after 20 minutes trying to air refuel in the training thing i end up killing the tanker in anger
Yes I went through that phase.
Mystic Aviator maybe you just tried pressing the communications menu button, that doesn’t work to speak with your wingmen or tanker if you are airborne with high fidelity models. To make this easier to explain: low fidelity model? Just press communications menu to speak to allied units.
high fidelity models? when you are in the ground press communications menu to call for ground crew or to request takeoff, but I think this is different depending on the aircraft. When you are already flying, press (whatever radio systems your plane has) to transmit within the frequency you set up.
Tip for the people that are learning air to air refueling; Fingertip controls, dont grip the throtthe/stick with your whole hand. Just push with the fingertips. Makes it easier for small inputs
Literally the best advice ever given.
I giggle while trying to do this. It's hilarious how impossible it is.
this phrasing almost made me spit out my water
@@vSilverXXProduction Try it with beer :)
I don't know why anyone would bother to give you a thumbs down. You do a fantastic job. Keep the videos rolling.
Affirm thx
It's easy till I'm about 5 feet from the refuel hose, then I just lose it.
Yes I remember those day
Don't look at the basket....look beyond.
Yeah it's like that when you're new to AAR. I just started to learn AAR and i can say that don't "chase" the basket, you have to make throttle adjusting all the time and do very fine pitch adjusting, trim the plane, try not to roll and use rudder unless the tanker is turning. But it feels amazing when you learn the damn thing, suck up the fuel nicely and the tanker says "refuel complete". TL;DR just practice, watch youtube videos about it and try it yourself until you get it
Well at lest the hose does come out for you.
I have NEVER EVER EEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEER managed to meme that damn hose to go out.
For fucks sake !!!
That is the stupidest game design EVER!
There's something magical about GR guides, the perfect balance between serious facts and entertaining humor makes them so easy to digest
This for me was the most frustrating thing to learn in DCS, I am still a bit ifffy at it.
I haven't tried it with the Hornet yet, I'm still shattered from the time I spent trying to refuel in the Su-33 a few months ago lol.
The Su-33 is hard but with the ASC refuel mode and the autothrust feature its easier. The F-15C however, that thing gives me nightmares.
Oh gosh I haven't tried the F-15C yet either, same reason as before. I'll have to give it a go someday soon!
Funny Enough, I can refuel with the F-15 easily. The SU-33 however...
That is wired, most people think SU33 is more easier than the F15. Me, too.
Installed the game today. 6 Month plan for all the gear required to play like a Reaper. Enjoyed these vids heaps... Hooked!
I find it much easier if you turn on autopilot and setting the attitude hold on once you get into precontact and just moving the throttles and making small adjustments on the stick. Also, using the refueling tank as a point of reference to stay in formation with the tanker.
Attitude or altitude? If attitude, what do you do when the tanker banks?
You bank with the tanker, attitude hold allows you to make corrections with the stick, just don't yank on it aggressively. And it was attitude, altitude hold is useless for everything but cruising around.
bulico06 gonna have to try this tonight, thanks.
Well done! Re-tanking the AV-8 still gives me nightmares.
Of note, at the beginning of "Dr Strangelove" during the B-52 refueling sequence, the music playing is a Laurie Johnson orchestral arrangement of "Try a Little Tenderness". Indeed. So, that's what I hum while refueling, just to remind me.
Thanks Cap! Ive been flying DCS for about 6mo and have amassed nearly every module, few of which Ive used a lot. I have stuck with the 18 and have learned the weapons, radar, navigation etc, now its on to refuel. As with everything in DCS there is quite a learning curve and I refuse to get frustrated. I stick with it until I get it right. You always help with these things so cheers-yeah! Thank you!
Hardest fkn thing Ive ever done...
SurvIan i couldn’t do it then I flew tight formations with friends which made me a lot smoother and it was the easiest thing I had ever done
Thanks for the tips on how to fly with the smallest inputs. What I find the most difficult is the throttle. I always overshoot the aircraft or fall behind, it is very very hard to find the right speed, and there is some lag in the engine response to take into account!
6:20 There's a Guitar Craft saying that pairs well with this: "Relaxation is necessary tension. Tension is unnecessary tension."
Yessss after couple of tries and lots of fails I finally got it. Thanks for helpful videos :D
A tip - I put the Master ARM to SAFE and put a lock on the Tanker. This way I can see my closing velocity to the tanker as I am approaching. Once you know the Tanker speed and you get contact, I turn the Auto throttle on and pretty much relax.
Also, practice formation flying with your wingman and get really close (get him to follow route and then you can formate on him/her). This helped me heaps.
Grim, i wish to thank you very much for your video tutorials. i have learnt everything i need about DCS f-18 with your help. you are honorable man indeed.
Pleasure
I will say that I’ve only flown a grand total of about 7 hours so far in DCS. I’m already successfully landing about 90% of my approaches on the carrier and 100% on land, but so far I’m 0 for 4 with air-to-air refueling attempts. Each of my 4 attempt lasted until I ran out of fuel or rammed the tanker intentionally when I really got frustrated. Even when landing on the carrier and on land, I’m having to constantly battle my controls to maintain straight and level flight and to maintain a slow and steady descent rate.
I’m a private pilot and I’m used to flying the Cessna 172, which is super easy to trim for constant speed level flight and for a steady descent rate during approaches to land. In DCS, I’ve exclusively flown the F/A-18C. Everyone says that the F/A-18’s FCS makes it one of the easiest planes in DCS to maintain straight and level flight with minimal to no control inputs. So far I’ve haven’t found this to be the case at all, but I’m starting to suspect that the problem is my Warthog flight controls, not the the aircraft flight model for the F/A-18C.
I have the TM Warthog stick & throttle and I’ve not been happy with their level of fine control. I’ve tried to retune their axis based on recommendations from others who use the TM WH controls to fly in DCS, but no matter what axis tune settings that I try, I can’t seem to find a setting that provides really good fine control of the aircraft.
I decided to sell my Warthog controls and recently order the Virpil VPC Constellation ALPHA-R with the VPC MongoosT-50CM2 Base & the VPC Mongoose T50CM3 Throttle. They are currently with Fed Ex in Indianapolis, waiting to clear customs. I’m hoping they will help my flying in DCS.
Really appreciate your vids cap... learn alot from them. you'd think the tanker would announce his airspeed along with altitude when you check in. So you didn't have to guess the approach/matching speed.
agree
Landing on the carrier is so damn easy compared to this!
Hard to describe how difficult this is in DCS. Absolutely think I am incapable of doing it. PIO is my life.
It makes me have even more appreciation for the guys that do this in real life!
Of course you're incapable of doing it. Aerial refueling isn't real. Think about it. "Yeah fly 300 mph and move 2 inches to the left." That's not a thing people can do.
These tutorials are gold, thanks for making these man!
im super new to dcs like i havent even bought a different plane im still trying to learn the basics in the ole frog foot
that PIO ive mastered its my mind that wants to counter my plane goin everywhere. for some reason im able to stay on the tanker and refuel while goin all over the place its awesome when it happens cause its funny and yes i am most times able to recover while still connected to it
I'm f*cking impressed by you people who can refuel in the air. Started with DCS last year, I have no learned BVR, Dogfight, Landing, Taking off, landing on Carriers. But air-refuiling I just cant do. Thank you Grim reapers for your tutorials.
AAR is the best practice for learning smooth control of your aircraft that you can get, and it's the surest cure for ham hands. You will also find that this will transfer over to your flying in general, and bombing/gun runs, landing, etc. will be much smoother, too!
Practice formation flying first. Just create a mission in the editor with a wing-man on a set course with varying turns, and fly along side him as best you can until you get the hang of it. You can even set up or download a practice refueling mission, and just fly formation with the tanker with a full tank of gas in your chosen plane until it becomes natural to you, then go for refueling by adjusting the fuel settings in the mission editor, or for that matter, fly formation until you run low on gas, refuel, then fly formation some more!
At first, that tanker or wing-man is going to seem to bounce all over the map. Trust me, it's you, not them. Then as you practice, you're going to settle down more and more, until it's buttery smooth. Yes, it can be boring, and you will suck, but each day you will suck a little less, then suddenly it will "click" and fall into place, and you will feel like it's not hard at all. It's just a matter of building "muscle memory" and coordination. A neurologist once told me that the brain works in these sort of things like it's building a road. It keeps building neural pathways, (which we call "muscle memory, but that's inaccurate) until they are complete, and then just like opening a road to traffic once it's finished, it opens those pathways all at once, and you just suddenly make a leap in whatever you are trying to learn, creating "the click". You are going to have good days and "off" days, too, just keep at it.
Some will pick it up quicker than others, your only rival in this is yourself, just work to be better than YOU were yesterday, and don't worry about how good someone else is. Don't get discouraged by UA-cam videos showing someone doing it perfectly, few people post their bad runs, and no one got it right on their first try, even real life pilots. (Take a look at the nose of a lot of real A-10C's for example, and note how banged up they are around the refueling door). And I do mean practice, this isn't something you are going to pick up in an hour. Just like learning to play a musical instrument, practice each day, not once a week or something. Even if it's just one run a day, you will improve, be patient! The more you consistently practice, the faster you will improve, an hour a day will make more progress than a half hour a day, but work to your schedule. Just for laughs, record your first attempt, so you can replay it when you get good at it and enjoy the show! :) Once you get good, practice it at night, then in rough weather, then in rough weather at night. :D
Keep practicing, too, you can lose the skill. Just like the road analogy above, the brain will close and abandon a road if it isn't seeing any traffic there, and just like an unmaintained road, it will be
a bumpy ride when you try to go there again. I haven't flown anything in DCS in quite some time, and am coming back to fly the F-18. I will likely have to start from scratch on AAR and formation flying, but by doing what I've advised, I'll get the skill back soon enough. Once you get the hang of it, keep practicing, at least every few days so you don't lose your edge. Keep that practice mission you made, or add AAR to new missions you create. There's a very good reason the USAF and the Navy have minimum flight hours for pilots each month to retain their flight status.
All this goes for the throttle, too! A big part of AAR is throttle control. As mentioned above, the brain is building a roadway there, too. You need to coordinate both for good formation flying as well as AAR. Part of the learning curve is learning this coordination, each hand has to learn to work in unison with what the other hand is doing. You are learning how the plane reacts to throttle input as well as stick input. All planes will react to even small changes in throttle, and you have to learn the "feel" of it in the particular aircraft you are flying. Along with the reaction, there is the amount of lag in that reaction that you have to get a feel for too. You aren't just going to be able to hold the throttle steady and "park" behind the tanker. Don't forget, the weight of your plane is going up as fuel is added, so you are going to have to adjust for that, too. The tricky part is that you have to be adjusting the throttle not for what the plane is doing now, but for what it's going to be doing a moment from now. You need to be proactive with the throttle, not reactive. Just like pilot induced oscillation with the stick, you can fall behind with the throttle and get into a pattern of over correction and get in a real bind. That road is turning into a four lane highway pretty quickly, isn't it?
The final piece of the AAR puzzle is trim. Going into AAR or flying in general becomes a lot more difficult when you are out of trim. Teach yourself to trim and stay in trim. An out-of-trim aircraft will fight you for control, and as the amount of out-of-trim condition will vary each time due to multiple factors, it greatly increases the learning curve, as the aircraft isn't going to be reacting the same way each time you attempt a maneuver. A well trimmed aircraft is a predictable aircraft, and a predictable aircraft is much easier to fly. Trim, trim, trim! A good practice technique for trim in DCS was taught to me by a R/L instrument flight instructor, he had me make final approaches and landings by adjusting trim only. It gave me a real feel for how trim affects the behavior of the aircraft. (And greatly improved my navigation and horrible landings, but that's a topic for a different post.)
As for hardware, you can adjust the axis curves in the control settings to help out a bit, every joystick and throttle is different, not only in it's axis scale and "throw" (fulcrum length), but also spring tension, fit to your hand, etc. so don't just accept the default curves, play with it, and find what works for you. The only time it is too extreme is when it interferes with control of the aircraft in combat, really, but go easy with it, and adjust it a little at a time to see what effect it has for you.
Something else that I do that may be helpful others, is I don't set the joystick perfectly square with my desk, it is rotated slightly to the left, (I'm right handed, lefties may want to rotate slightly right) just a couple degrees to follow the natural curve of my wrist and push of my arm. It really helps reduce fatigue and give me a more natural movement of my arm. (Kind of like angling the paper a little bit when writing or drawing.) The trick is to find the balance between comfort and accurate piloting, you still want forward to be forward, etc. Some joysticks have this "twist" built in, but most do not. YMMV, but give it a try. Finally, there are stick extensions available (primarily for the Warthog) or somewhat easily made if you have the tools and the skill set, that can drastically improve the fine control of the stick, but aren't a necessity for most people.
If you have a programmable keyboard, you can create a macro for the tanker calls, etc. and save time and concentration away from your flying to make life easier too. There are also several voice command programs you can use to reduce this workload as well. Do what works for you.
Believe it or not, just as in drawing, most joystick/throttle movement comes from your arm, not your wrist. You can use wrist movement for very small inputs, but you are really flying the plane with your arms, (or should be) your hands are just holding the controls. If you tense up on the controller with your hand, it restricts the movement of your arm, and you lose the ability for fine motor control. Relax your grip, your arm, and your shoulder if they start to tense up. The first indication you are tensing up will usually be a raised shoulder. If you are tensing up, you will see it in your performance with the aircraft long before you begin to feel it in stressed muscles.
OK, a little long, but I hope it is helpful to some. This all can be applied to anything in the sim, too, you can create a landing mission that places you in the air near the runway for quick touch-and-go practice, static targets for gun runs, etc. The key is repetition, consistent practice makes perfect!
TL;DR Adjust your HOTAS setup and axis curves, and practice, practice, practice!
The "Refueling Tanks" that you are calling are known as "Refuel Pods" or "Sgt. Fletcher Pods". I used to work at Depot on the Air Force C-130 family for 13+ years.
can you refuel in air and drop fuel at the same time until both the kc130 and your aircraft have no more fuel?
All planes using a refueling boom are harder to refuel. The good thing is, refueling with boom is quicker than with probe and basket.
Holy shiet I need to try this as soon as i get my PC ready xD
Holy shit I've tried my first refueling (I play VR, so i think it's even easier) just an hour ago and came by your video. I spent literally an hour wiggling around the basket, sipping drops of fuel from time to time. You made it so easy. Well done and great skills captain!
Hooked it up first go, only fueled for about nine seconds but still very happy!
I don't think you followed proper GR air refueling procedure. I could not see continous barrel rolls around the tanker.
DAM I know I fecked up!
If enyone is having problems with overspeeding then just press the active pause and the tanker will pass you again
Great video, thank you!
Thanks for all these great tutorials, great help for the community :)
Pleasure
the moment when your stick arrives in 2 days xD
Every time I watch air-to-air refueling it gives me flashbacks to attempting it in EF2000.
Great tutorial! I am guessing that this tutorial was made before wake turbulence was introduced. Have been practising with wake turbulence for the last months and is struggeling alot. The air around the tanker is so much more unstable. Guess I just have to keep practising. By the way, do you have wake turbulence activated when you are doing air to air refueling on the Grim Reapers missions?
Turb doesn't work properly in multiplayer, so we have it turned off most of time as we only do MP.
I understand it's a minus when the pilot of the tanker plane dies of old-age, but does Navy consider that a plus if the other pilot finishes some novel while you're tanking?
LOL yes, I love a good paperback when fueling :)
The tanker seems to be jumping up and down for me, even taking taking slight turns. As if it was making fun of me. How come yours is flying so steady? Is the built-in tutorial mission bugged?
able to fully refuel my hornet on first trial after watching this tutorial... amazing!
i used to think Carrier Recovery is tough, until I tried refueling.
Im new to DCS so thank you for all the videos and tutorials. I noted in a previous vid you had no use for the slide above the red button on your hotas. I mapped mine to extend and retract the probe, maybe that would be useful unless you use it for something else now.
Copy thx
I started my DCS life with just the F-16 and flew it for over a year before I got the Hornet. The difference between the two is staggering. If you can in-air refuel in the Viper, the Hornet is 10x easier. It just is. I don't know if it's the difference between the basket type vs the boom type, but it was actually startling how much simpler and easier it was. The Viper is much harder to maintain speed because it's so fast. And the boom port is behind your head, so you got no visual on the actual contact. And when you get behind a tanker that is flying at 20k feet and in a straight line, you can use the auto-throttle to perfectly match speed and hold it.
What stick do you have? Does it have much of a dead zone? Sensitivity must have been very low for this video
x56 no DZ
Well, I have it too. The best chances to succeed in refueling is when using the blue marked spring.
That wasn't simulation. 3:52 That was pure arcade.
Is there a cheat shortcut to to complete the air refueling?
nope, you can fly with "unlimited fuel" or simply fly something without AAR XD
@@diegobasterrica6311 thanks
Hi Cap, how did you manage that the tanker only lets out one basket?
It does that sometimes.
I figured out what works for me using a T16000 HOTAS. Firstly, I set my pitch and roll dead zones to zero. I found that creating dead zones in my controls actually exacerbate the "ham fisting" issues. I prefer my aircraft to react to every single stick adjustment no matter how minute it is. Secondly, I use the Attitude hold to dampen just a tad bit. Thirdly, I do look at the basket because that's what I'm aiming for. Using peripheral vision or not looking at the basket as some have suggested, never made sense to me. To each his/her own I guess...😏
Awesome work Cap. Great tuition.
While the hornet may be one of the most complicated aircraft to fly, it’s the easiest to refuel by far. The F-15 is so much easier to fly, but refueling sucks.
I thought it would be the F14 😂
I find it helps if you put your hand to the bottom of the stick and control it with your forefinger and thumb. If you do lose control, standard procedure is to go behind the tanker again and shoot it down in a fit of rage.
I CANT SEEM to catch up at 301knots form 0.0nm, i approach and hit the basket at 15knots then find it hard to slow down why
I give up
edit: I fucking did it, after a lot of training of course, but I have some tricks that helped me a lot:
1)Use the radar to lock up the tanker and you can then see your relative speed with the tanker, you'll know if you are arriving to fast or if you can speed up, it's super useful when you are joining up with the tanker and it will prevent over speeding if you use it correctly
2)Engage altitude autopilot when you are close to the tanker, the altitude autopilot will set your altitude at first but I found out that it also made your controls feel more stiff after you move your stick a bit, it helps a lot with pilot induced oscillations and simply makes your plane feel more stable and more precise, this may be my personal preference though. If you make too big movements, it will disengage from this mode so it's only for precise and small movements
the shit is impossible and I have been playing this game for 5 years!
sea gav I know mate
Same!! 6 hours trying. I hook sometimes but can't stay there. Will refuel at carrier or land.
THIS IS LIKE HOLDING EJECULATION...
YOU LOSE IT EVERY TIME !!!
Grim, your work is awesome. keep up the good work bro
Thanks cap, and thanks Grim Reapers !
Aliens soundtrack.. loooove it.
Do you have wake turbulence disabled? My plane goes nuts when I get close to it.
Just stay out of the wake cones and you'll not get affected.
Good job Blaze
the god damn tanker keeps swirling up and down! STAND STILL GOD DAMNIT!! hahaha
Good to see from the comments section I’m not the only one to get pissed and shoot at the tanker
Only tried two times, Fai...Learnt what not to do twice...
you can lock him up with A/A Radar and will tell you closure speed and distance.
It might annoy the pilots with their cockpit beeping warnings at them though.
I don't think it is a standard practice.
I think TACAN can give same info. Make sure you tell the refueler to turn on TACAN in Mission editor Waypoint 0.
Came here looking fot a good refuelling tutorial vid saw the video menu picture and now I'm wondering...Is that an LGTR on a hornet in DCS?
i get to basket n f18 goes hard right. any ideas
I'm having a lot of trouble with AA RF, but it's not my flying it's my curves... the joystick responce sends me dozens of feet in the wrong direction at the slightest touch. I haven't changed the curves yet i would lof to know whay CAP's curves look like (no pun).
Do you have videos on how to fly? How to turn properly, manage your speed and set up coordinatinates etc?
Hello. So I can not figure out what I am doing wrong. I try and set up a simple mission to practice refueling. One F-14 and one tanker. However, when I pull up behind the tanker after making the initial call for fuel and the call that i am ready to hook up the basket never comes out. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? I have tried several different types of tankers with no success in getting the basket to deploy when I prompt the tanker.
Does the tanker respond to your call?
If the tanker responds, then you have the right radio frequency--but if they don't deploy the basket, you aren't close enough.
Don't fret it too much, even when everything works properly this shit is beyond "mere" insane-level difficulty.
I wasn't aware that the Hornet could fly slow enough to not stall, to fly behind a Herc. I thought the Kc-135 or KC-10s were used for 'jets'
Baer LordBaer search youtube for hornet high alpha pass. you’ll see airshow footage of how slow a hornet can go,
Baer you would be surprised. Used to refuel from KC-97 in a Phantom.
How to you set up your throttle? How much dead zone? Do you add any curvature? I have tried a dead zone of 5 and the test of the axis as a straight 1:1 ratio with no curvature. But then I discovered that the afterburner detent on my Warthog throttle was out of sync with the afterburner in the F/A-18.
The only way I found to fix it, was to make the throttle a slider and add a user curve. Then I had to adjust so that the black square moved to the left to align the detent with the afterburner in DCS. But by adjusting the far end of the axis, it made the earlier part of the axis steeper. So then I added a little curvature near the beginning of the axis. What I need up with is a gradual curve in the early range of the throttle. Then the middle range of the axis gets steeper, and then the last 3rd of the axis returns to about a 1:1 ratio.
I’m not sure if this was the best solution. My throttle still feels very touchy and difficult to get fine adjustments. When I’m trying to maintain around 310 knots to match the speed of the tanker, I’ve found that I need about 88% to 90% RPM’s in the F/A-18. This requires me to have the throttle pretty close to the afterburner detent and with the adjustment zip made, that’s the steepest part of the axis.
‘
I may just get rid of the afterburner adjustment and live with it being a little out of alignment and return the axis to a 1:1 ratio with a little dead zone.
Never any modifiers at all on throttle. Should remain perfectly linear.
I really appreciate these tutorial vids you do, just thought I'd say thanks!
thx
Very informative and valuable content. Subscribed.
Really enjoy your vids.
i cant contact the fueling plan once i am near it :(
Eyes: Yes, I can do it.
Hand: No, you don't.
Wouldn't the pilot initiate the disconnect from the basket once fueling is complete? Seems odd how it just rips off of you. It should allow you to reduce speed and gradually break away, shouldn't it?
Good point, I agree
That looked easy! Still can't get connected to the drogue. I've been closer than that numerous times and still can't hook up!!
How do you hold speed so well? I was able to make contact finally but I keep either going too fast or too slow and lost contact again. I try to regulate my throttle with VERY light movements so I don't undershoot/overshoot with millimeters touches yet it still keeps happening. Really frustrating when you spent a whole lot of time just to get the probe in to begin with.
It's all muscle memory and practice. There is no shortcuts.
@@grimreapers True. I've gotten better since last I commented. I can't hold it for an entire refuel but just long enough. It feels like performing surgery but I'll get it soon enough :)
How do you know the frequency of the plane
Usually written in Mission Briefing.
The ONLY good thing about practising this refueling, is that it makes everything else seem easy!!
What iis the keybind to communicate with the tanker?? i am sorry english is not my fiirst lenguage
One thing that ALL pilots should do, that wasn't mentioned ... Set Tanker TACAN, so you have a bearing, range and altitude from your gauges, to find and intercept the tanker!
without proper throttle control its very difficult, I can connect to the basket but i cant stay steady
Same here, this is off-the-wall difficulty. All those "pwners" in the FPS game genre think they have "skill", well, midair refuelling is beyond skill.
Skill only helps you when you're doing something that's... you know... Possible in the first place :)
I found my stick is really heavy the T16000m .....Makes finer movements of refueling hard
Just purchased the hornet, I tried refuelling in F15...really hard
And just when you manage to refuel midair, then turn on the vortex and everything starts again. When pilots refer to night carrier landings as the hardest thing, I cannot agree. I imaging myself getting vectored to the tanker, because I do not have enough fuel to land. That´s the moment to try the ejection seat.
silly question: Do I need to click allways or can I use the keyboard?
Yes you can bind anything to keyboard.
this is impossible with keyboard or super super super hard
I personally have not seen you guys use an air refueling plane on any of your missions. Is that something that is to cumbersome with so many planes? Or is it just too dangerous because the enemy could attack while you're refueling?
They just don't stay in the air long enough to burn fuel :D
We used to, but it takes 45-60 minutes to refuel 10 planes so rarely get to do it nowdays
I agree with you
With the hotas one it is really hard to do
Locking the Tanker in your Radar makes it way more easy. You can see the seed difference and everything is no Problem.
great video Cap!
Are you from poland
Nearly thrown my hotas at the monitor many times trying this when learning .. it takes practice believe me.
I could connect with tankers in the F16 most recently, I could get some fuel (2000lbs, about 1/3 the internal tank) but I disconnect very quickly due to, yknow, boom stuff.
I'm pretty sure I could be better at refueling with baskets now, I'm going to hit up the Mirage free trial next.
F16 refueling is way more difficult than the basket coupling in F18 or AV8 , this is my experience