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AAR Refueling

Wood

Wood

Messages
72
Country
canada
Hi all

For a while now I've been thinking on what needs to be done or if it is even possible to be able to improve on the AAR inside FSX. I know that FSX is not designed as a military flight sim but that direction is growing more and more.

90% of my flight siming has been on Falcon 4.0 since it came out and I've seen some inceredible developements from everyone who continued to improve apon it. The last four years I've beta tested for BMS and has seen some incredible advancements that made the sim that much better and one of those many improvements was the AAR refueling operations. Where any A/C that was refueling would actually connected to the boom and once you were connected their would be an envelope so to speak where the pilot could make small corrections in order to stay connected until refueling was complete. The way it was coded made it incredibly realistic. It gave the player the option of using one of three settings EASY, SIMPLIFIED, REALISTIC

If EASY mode was selected the player's A/C when reaching a certain distance from the boom would begin to take on fuel without connecting to the boom.
In SIMPLIFIED the pilots A/C would have to come within a certain distance and say 10' feet back (can't remember exactly) and the A/C would be pulled and connected to the boom. Once connected the pilot would then need to stay within the flight envelope otherwise be disconnected.

Realitic mode. The pilot would have move into a precontact position and hold there for a minimum of 30-40 seconds before being cleared to contact. At that point the pilot needed follow the indicator lights into position where the boom would connect and begin to take on fuel.

Janes F-18 also had a good AAR refueling where it would be similiar to what I wrote above.

I've often thought that this would be an incredible advancement in AAR refueling within FSX if we could adapt this type of behavior to the AAR operations. The way it is now the pilots still need to be very skilled at connecting and refueling but the from what I've seen is that there is really no physical connection to the drogue or boom and it the aircraft moved for what ever reason being turbulance or whatever the basket could possibly move into the cockpit of a/c.

I'm not complaining here and not sure if it is possible at all to fix this at all as I've heard and keep on hearing FSX code is very limited. I'm bnot asking anyone to fix it but asking because I would like to try.

So my questions would be

1. Is it possible given the limitations i keep hearing about FSX.
2. Where would I find or begin to look at to begin.
3.Is this something that people would care about in the FSX community.


Thanks for reading this and hope to hear from you about this.

Wood
 
One of the difficulties trying to perform an AAR approach in FSX is that for some reason that I do not understand the distance between your airplane and the Boom/Basket is rendered differently in cockpit view than in external view.
For example, if you slowly approach the Boom/basket until it appears inside your cockpit, then pause the simulator and look at the situation in external view, the boom/basket is way ahead of the cockpit.

I have had the exact same experience when trying to poke some object with the AAR probe in my HH-3E, flying at about 1 knot approach speed. I can see the probe enter the object from the cockpit, but it is some distance away in the external view.

So even if you managed to make a smooth approach and engage the boom/basket, your buddies in Multiplayer would see you stop short.

I know this does not answer your question, but it does point out an issue that would have to be resolved in FSX

Roy
 
Thanks for the reply Roy. I notice this too hopefully it can be fixed.

Just out of curiousity what is you Drogue/hose settings

Ours are set to

Radius: 29.40
Drogue-
Couple Radius: 11.00m
Uncouple radius: 20.00 (this is your choice, it should be MORE than couple radius, but smaller the difference, more precise flying is necessary to continue to take fuel.
Drogue X offset: -17.90
Drogue Y offset: -32.70
Drogue Z offset: -10.50


Thanks
Wood
 
I have never had such settings because I have never done any serious AAR in FSX and I'm not aware if they even exist.

Roy
 
WOOD...

Wood said:
Thanks for the reply Roy. I notice this too hopefully it can be fixed.

Just out of curiousity what is you Drogue/hose settings

Ours are set to

Radius: 29.40
Drogue-
Couple Radius: 11.00m
Uncouple radius: 20.00 (this is your choice, it should be MORE than couple radius, but smaller the difference, more precise flying is necessary to continue to take fuel.
Drogue X offset: -17.90
Drogue Y offset: -32.70
Drogue Z offset: -10.50


Thanks
Wood
Click to expand...

I do alot of AAR with the F-18 and Jivko Rusev/Andy Niko Refueling gauge. We might be talking the same thing about a contact "window", but from what I understand, this gauge works in reverse. Meaning, when activated, once the plane gets into the gauge-defined "window" it takes on fuel at a certain percentage (simulating fuel flow transfer) 'til FULL or disengaged.

The only way I can see your idea being implemented, semi-realistically, is if someone made an FSX tanker (KC-135T or KC-10) with an BASKET equivalent on the drogue and made a military aircraft (F-18 Hornet) with a HOOK/HOIST attachpoint on the probe side. Then did the work to give the attachpoint "realistic" connect/disconnect settings and an XML that would XFER "fuel" to the receiving aircraft. Think FSX Helo Hoist mission whereas the HELO HOOK is the probe and the CARGO BOX is the basket.

Later
Sludge
 
Sludge,
Neat idea.
How about doing it the other way around. Attach the basket to the hoist cable and deploy it like a refuelling hose. If you gave it the correct aerodynamic characteristics, it would trail in the airflow

I've done quite a bit of hoist work and if you pick up something and then accelerate the object trails in the airflow and usually breaks the cable, but all that can be fixed in its Sim.cfg file

You would know the length of hose deployment from (A:SLING CABLE EXTENDED LENGTH:1,feet) and you can control it with HOIST_SWITCH_EXTEND, HOIST_SWITCH_RETRACT and stop it where you want it with 0 (>K:HOIST_SWITCH_SET) That would of course have to be done in the Tanker in MP. You could control it using a pop-up gauge and a rear facing camera.

There are probably many reasons why it would be more difficult, but certainly worth a try.

Roy
 
Sludge said:
WOOD...



I do alot of AAR with the F-18 and Jivko Rusev/Andy Niko Refueling gauge. We might be talking the same thing about a contact "window", but from what I understand, this gauge works in reverse. Meaning, when activated, once the plane gets into the gauge-defined "window" it takes on fuel at a certain percentage (simulating fuel flow transfer) 'til FULL or disengaged.

The only way I can see your idea being implemented, semi-realistically, is if someone made an FSX tanker (KC-135T or KC-10) with an BASKET equivalent on the drogue and made a military aircraft (F-18 Hornet) with a HOOK/HOIST attachpoint on the probe side. Then did the work to give the attachpoint "realistic" connect/disconnect settings and an XML that would XFER "fuel" to the receiving aircraft. Think FSX Helo Hoist mission whereas the HELO HOOK is the probe and the CARGO BOX is the basket.

Later
Sludge
Click to expand...

Thanks Sludge
Not that I'm a coder but I see your point. Silly question here and taking into account copyright material but why could not the existing A/C be edited to what your post indicated.

Cheers
Wood
 
Orion...

Helicopter hoist/sling systems are not compatible with airplane SimObjects, from what I've found.
Click to expand...

So have you tried doing this exact thing? Can you not add a hoist/hook system to a "non-helicopter" simobject?

If you think a little outside the box, one could design/model a Tanker with the hoist/hook that runs the length of the boom, ends at the drogue basket. Tanker's ready. Now, w/any probe-capable aircraft, model a sling/hoist/hook on the refueling probe. Finally, "call up" (XML driven?) a simpleobject (invisible two-attachpoint) at the end of the refueling probe, which is connected on one end to the hoist/hook point near the business end of the refueling probe and the other is "open ended" able to connect to a sling/hook point of the tanker, right?

Essentially, its:

tanker drogue -- (hoist/hookpoint) > (x) <(attachpoint) == invisible simpleobject == (attachpoint) > (x) < (sling/hookpoint) -- aircraft refueling probe

This is just a theory/idea for an FSX workaround... what wouldn't work on it? The SDK specifically says: "Use of two or more systems simultaneously is not prohibited in the simulation."

Later
Sludge
 
Roy...

Yeah, I'm assuming IF this works, you should be able to do it either way. Put the simpleobject as the Basket and give it simulated AERO properties in the .CFG file. Or at the front of the player's refueling probe. This way, the tanker model/aircraft only has to worry about having a hoist/hook built into it. Whereas the each player's aircraft is the one that has to "generate" a simpleobject, for the ability to CONNECT to the basket.

You'd just have to know your audience, because if you're flying practice in Free Flight... you'd have to have a way to "call up" the simpleobject on the AI tanker. Whereas, if its on the player's aircraft, I'm assuming the simpleobject can be called up at aircraft start.

Not 100 percent sure how or if this would work, just throwing ideas out there, see what sticks/might work. All I do know, is that the simpleobject "connector" is the key IF this is to work. On what aircraft it gets attached to will be decided afterwards.

Later
Sludge
 
Wood

Not sure that we cant, but I'll look to see if it can be done. Nothing's too silly to ask, that's why we are here right....??

Later
Sludge
 
Sludge,
The SDK does say that hoist systems are specific to helicopters, but the SDK has been known to be wrong. Only way to check is to try it. I could try it as a buddy tanker pod on an A-7.

At the moment, with helos I have to have a saved flight which includes one or more simple objects as payloads and associated with an exit. When the exit opens as part of the hoist moving into position, the simpleobject appears suspended on the cable. The object is not rendered until out of the helo. As the cable is extended the simple object will move in the opposite direction to helo movement, it trails in the airflow. So, if you want to be able to have the basket trail behind the tanker it would do so. However, since it is already attached to the cable, it cannot attach itself to the probe. If it was released it would disappear backwards and drop until it hit the ground. Then you would have a thin cable trailing.


If the hoist was at the probe, the simpleobject would move backwards and dissapear inside the fighter.

There may be a way to get it to work differently using Simconnect

Roy
 
Sludge said:
So have you tried doing this exact thing? Can you not add a hoist/hook system to a "non-helicopter" simobject?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have, and it doesn't work. That's why I said "from what I've found."

I don't think your method would work exactly (the part of the SDK you quoted means you can use multiple sling/hoist systems simultaneously), but perhaps you could have an invisible helicopter/SimpleObject pair flying in formation next to the hose and probe (being controlled with SimConnect). However, in doing so, you'd begin to run into problems as described here, here, and here. So overall, I think that's a bit of a silly kludge just to get a wire drawn between the two.
 
Last edited:
Fellas...

Yes, I have, and it doesn't work. That's why I said "from what I've found."

I don't think your method would work exactly (the part of the SDK you quoted means you can use multiple sling/hoist systems simultaneously), but perhaps you could have an invisible helicopter/SimpleObject pair flying in formation next to the hose and probe (being controlled with SimConnect). However, in doing so, you'd begin to run into problems as described here, here, and here. So overall, I think that's a bit of a silly kludge just to get a wire drawn between the two.
Click to expand...

There's your answer. Dead in the water.

Later
Sludge
 
The process of refuelling is possible through sim connect, both expert mode and easy as well , For the Milviz F15 the AI tanker is available anywhere and follows procedures to the letter, all parts including the drone, contact, fuel door and animation of the various assemblies were accurately portrayed.

It requires far more AI objects and accurate position information than one would expect to accomplish it .
 
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