My biggest issue to overcome was actually getting into the basket. I would approach to within a couple of feet and then get into a big PIO and have to back off. I solved that by slowing down my approach to just a crawl and resisting the urge to make quick movements with the stick. The next big problem I was having was "rubber banding" while plugged in. By this I mean I was making too large a correction on the throttles and getting into a fore and aft PIO until I would back out of the basket inadvertently. I find the IL-78 the easiest to fuel from due to the lights it has on the refueling pod. There is a green one in the middle to let you know that fuel is flowing. There are two red lights on either side of the green. The one on the right will blink if you are backing away and the one on the left blinks if you are moving towards the pod. If you are stable, in the sweet spot, they go out and all you see is the green one. When all three begin to blink it means that you are full and it will disconnect.
I have my stick set with a curve of 20 to dampen my stick inputs. When plugging in, I am concentrating on the basket and my speed. I am usually zoomed in a fair bit too. I try not to have more than about 2-3 knots of closure. Once I have plugged in, I immediately zoom out a bit to be able to see the fuselage of the tanker in order to be better able to just fly a good formation with it. I also found that I had a habit to overcome where I was backing off of the throttles as soon as I made contact, as if I was worried about running into the tanker! Allow yourself to push that hose several feet back into the pod before stopping your closure. I work on keeping centered on the refueling pod and staying somewhat below it. As that Scott said in his video about refueling in the Harrier, the most important thing is to RELAX!! You are still making stick and throttle movements but if you can get yourself to relax, you might find that the inputs are a little less jerky and you will get better and better at this. One more thing....when approaching the basket, I take my feet completely off the pedals. I find that, for me anyway, I make things worse with pedal inputs so I just leave them alone.
Way back when we were flying the modded F/A-18C, I used to get up an hour early every morning and go into the cave and fire DCS up and launch from the carrier, go find the tanker and hit it, then come back and trap. I would do that sometimes as many as three times before shutting it off and going to work. I do it now with the "real" Hornet and I am finding the learning curve much steeper and way more unforgiving of any errors than the old modded Hornet. I still have a long way to go. That is the only way any of us will ever get to the point where we will be able to fly a mission like we had last night as a matter of course. Tanking is an essential skill, just like trapping, and waiting till squad night to practice it will not cut it! The rewards of mastering these skills are extremely gratifying and I highly recommend it!
