Dancing With The Basket

[AG-51_Razor]

For those of you that have not yet given this a try, maybe because you haven't started flying the Hornet, I would suggest that you bring your A-7 up alongside the tanker and just practice flying a very tight formation on it's wing. One thing that I have done, besides just an awful lot of practice, is to move the curves for pitch and roll up to 40 with a dead zone of 10. This makes it just a little bit sluggish but allows me to get in close to the tanker with much less overcontrolling.

If you are in the A-7, try to get the tanker to allow you to refuel from him. I don't know for sure that this will work because I am at the office right now. Pull up behind it and bring up your radio menu to tell him you intend to tank. He will reply to announce when you are ready at pre-contact. Next, pull up closer yet, like about a plane length behind and hit F1. If you're close enough and if there's no worries about being in a plane without a refueling probe, he'll reel out the basket! Then just practice putting your nose in it and mholding it there.

Better yet, just start flying the Hornet!! 

[AG-51_Bulldog]

 

[AG-51_Razor]

That's what I'm talkin' about!!

[AG-51_TwoLate]

Nice post. A lot of A-10 flyers say using your curvature on pitch and some dead zone on other axis to make refueling easier. It works for me on the A-10. So yes making sure you can make smoother movements of stick is a must. We don't need those knife like movements of a prop fighter. A different mindset is needed. Great post thanks Razor.

[AG-51_Razor]

I just checked and the A-7 can get the Tanker to deploy the basket if you are so inclined. I should think though that you would be much better off just doing it in a Hornet and actually trying to GET SOME!!!

[AG-51_Razor]

I'd like for us to use this thread to post any particular tips and tricks y'all use to hit the tanker. Here are a few of mine:

I use my radar to lock up the tanker, which gives me a better idea of how close I am and approximately what my closure rate is. As Snoochy can attest, that didn't help too much last night!

I hit the / key to bring up the tanker (the closest one is always F1). After I tell it I intend to refuel, F1 is the radio call from you saying that you are in the "pre contact" position. If the tanker doesn't agree, he'll tell you again to report pre contact. So I have started getting in pretty close before hitting F1. This gives me the added benefit of getting a pretty good idea of what the tanker's speed is.

So, I've hit F1 saying I'm ready at pre contact and the tanker agrees and clears me in to contact and begins reeling out the hose. I try to be a little bit lower than the basket as I approach it. This allows me to see it more clearly and also allows me to fly up into the basket (assuming that I throw a strike the first time) and disipate some of that overtaking speed in a slight climb.

I allow myself to close up on the tanker a little bit before pulling off some power. At this point, I am pretty well zoomed in on the HUD, basket and nozel and find that it is a little bit easier to gage my relative movement with the tanker by zooming back out to see the tail section and fusealage of it.

As most of you know, plugging in is a peice of cake compared to staying plugged in for the duration. As I mentioned earlier, I have set my curves for pitch and roll to 40 with a dead band of 10, which gives me enough authority without making me twitchy while on the hose. Still, I find that I have to fight the impulse to over control and almost more often than not, I get into these pilot induced occilations - usually in pitch accompanied with gross movements of the throttle. This is just like learning to hover a helicopter! You've got to learn to be patient with control inputs. Put a little in and then take it out.

What are your observations/experiences. Maybe by sharing in here, somebody will see something that will turn on a light and they will all of a sudden get it.....and wonder, what was so hard about that?!!

[AG-51_Bulldog]

Once I make contact I try to no longer concentrate on the basket but avert my attention to my planes current relationship to the belly and width of the tanker through the upper front portion of the wind screen, and try to maintain that position of reference. I have found that it is easier to make adjustment and see a little ahead if the tanker starts to make a turn or if you start slipping form current position, allowing me to being making small adjustments as to not break contact. Holding focus on the basket I find myself not lasting long and I begin to either serge forward and back or oscillate up and down, eventually so much so it breaks contact.

[AG-51_Fireball]

I'm certainly no pro at it, but a few things that are helping me:

- After you've connected, keep going forward for a bit and get up closer to the wing. That gives you more slack in the line to play with. Nobody flies perfect formation. You're going to be constantly adjusting power one way or the other as you find yourself inching forward or dropping back a little, or having to make slight movements up and down. If you stay back at the very limit of the hoseline, then if you drop back the least little bit you'll be disconnected.

- Also, as Bulldog said, after you've connected, shift your focus away from the probe itself and just concentrate on flying formation with the tanker.

- I don't know if this is right or not, but when I'm refueling I take my feet  completely off the rudders. I do all my horizontal adjusting with the joystick (ailerons). Actually, I've found in the F/A18 I very rarely use rudders at all for anything. I've also been taking my feet completely off the rudders when I'm trapping.

- The point of reference I use for when to press F1 - Pre-Contact is when I'm close enough so that the tanker's wingtips appear to touch the two "posts" that the HUD glass is connected to. For the tanker to clear you for contact you have be pretty close, and also I think the closure rate comes into play. If you're coming in too fast, even if distance is right, he won't clear you.

[AG-51_Razor]

Great stuff guys!! This is exactly what I was hoping to see. Both of you guys brought up the same point about, when once plugged in, to stop concentrating on the basket and shift your attention to the tanker. This makes perfect sense because when you think about it, once the probe is plugged in, the basket ain't going nowhere!! I started off looking up at the tanker's wing or the pod that the hose came out of but that didn't help me with judging my longitudinal movement relative to the tanker. I need to look up and over to its fuselage and/or empenage.

We should also be a little better about flying a good formation on the tanker's left wing while our section leader is getting gas. This will facilitate our getting into position faster and easier once he is finished. And once off the hose, assuming there is someone behind you, move over to the observation position on the right wing. We get lazy too easily and let's face it, flying a good formation is hard work. BUT, like this tanking, it gets much easier the more we do it.

One thing we need to establish for sure, is the requirements following one guy getting off the hose and another getting on. Do we need to cancel refueling first? Do we need to request pre contact before joining up? Maybe we can get some answers to those questions tomorrow night.

[AG-51_Animal]

I use the techniques lined out here in 113 training, inflight refueling http://vfa-113.com/

Of note: align the basket with your horizon line in the hud as you are aproaching for contact and only use pitch for verticle corrections and use the rudder for horizontal corrections.  Keep aileron angle steady and you have reduced the problem to two axis.

[AG-51_Razor]

That's an interesting point about the rudders versus the aelirons. I'm going to give that a try! 

[AG-51_Bulldog]

I use rudder for small corrections when on approach, then for minor corrections while hooked up.

[Jarhead2b]

Pre contact Position is much closer then one plane length, more like the length nose of the hornet away.

[VT-51_Snooch]

These are all really good suggestions..
Like Fireball described, I line up the two HUD posts to where they are touching the bottom of the tankers wing then hold the basket reel pod right in the middle of the HUD posts after I am plugged in, the is my focus point.
Almost like holding the bubble in the middle of your turn indicator.
When I am plugged into the basket I also push in a little to create some slack for forward/ backward movement, as Fireball also indicated.
This helps with my biggest problem and that's jockeying the throttle all the time.
And as always, make sure you are trimmed up before pre-contact.
 

[AG-51_Razor]

The pods on the IL-78 have three lights, red green and amber that blink or stay steady or just turn off. Any idea what they are trying to tell us? I suspect that they are something like the ones on the belly of the KC-135 but haven't seen anything in writing about it.