In-Flight Refueling gauge + video

[markturner]

Hey Neutrino, got the gauge working nicely - great tool BTW, thansk for this, you are a clever guy!

One question - I can mange brief periods of a few seconds in the zone, and take on fuel, but often I see a mesage saying "Transfer" and my fuel quantity actually goes down!! What is going on there and why?


Cheers, Mark

[neutrino]

Hey Neutrino, got the gauge working nicely - great tool BTW, thansk for this, you are a clever guy!

One question - I can mange brief periods of a few seconds in the zone, and take on fuel, but often I see a message saying "Transfer" and my fuel quantity actually goes down!! What is going on there and why?


Cheers, Mark

Mark, let's say you see the red 'TRANSFER' message and immediately after that it says you have 75% fuel. If the gauge then shows the flashing 'REFUELING' message then your fuel percentage must continue to go up - 75%, 76%, 78%.... 80% etc. If at 80% you drift away from the refueling position and it stops showing 'REFUELING' then as you start burning fuel you will naturally see the fuel percentage go down albeit at a much slower pace. Is this what you see or is it something different? As long as 'REFUELING' is flashing - your fuel % must go up!

[Orion]

Are you hosting a multiplayer mission?

You could be refueling properly, but when you get the TRANSFER message, the refueling gauge's fuel percent goes down to the amount of fuel you actually have.  Say, for example, you come to the tanker at 50% fuel, then take on 25% more, so when you get the transfer message at 75%, the fuel on the gauge goes back down to 50% minus however much fuel you burned while flying in formation with the tanker.

[markturner]

Hi Guys, no, i am not in a multiplayer session. Its difficult to say exactly, as my skillz dont allow me enough stable time at the boom yet, but at some point as I move back and forth, i get the refueling message, my %age increases, then I start moving around a bit, then ( but not always) The red "transfer " message pops up and my fuel %age drops say 10 or 15%, so I have less than when i started to refuel...

I see the transfer message shows after a certain time, but what are the parameters? does it show as well as the full message in the HUD? ( I am not using the Hornet BTW, butthe Iris F-16, so dont have the integrated HUD installed). Are the messages slightly different in that case - Just wondering why I get the transfer message when i have not filled right up and usuaaly, as I am so crap, only taken on a few seconds worth of fuel... orion, are you saying that the %age displayed on my screen is  total value of the transferred fuel and my original fuel level? Sorry if I am missing something obvious here...



Cheers, Mark

[neutrino]

Mark, what aircraft are you flying ?

[markturner]

see edit above!!

[neutrino]

Thanks, Mark, I will look into this and will post what I find.

[markturner]

Cool, BTW, do you know what causes the AI tanker to jitter back and forth sometimes? Its really irritating...

[neutrino]

Depends on what drives the tanker - is it a KC-135 that follows a flight plan, or an FSRecorder flight...

One more question - do you do anything specifically in the IRIS F-16D cockpit to prepare for refueling - like click switches or something ? I think their model has some built-in air-to-air refueling capabilities.

[markturner]

Hi Neutrino, I just open the refuel door, dont know about any refueling aids etc....

Cheers,, mark

[SpazSinbad]

Hornet Turbulent Tanking Video:

[markturner]

Hey Spaz, if only it was like that, its more of a flicker, where the model of the plane appears to move back and forth very quickly, perhaps twice a second. It usually only happens as you get close to the tanker and it does not happens always. Multiplayer is smoother generally.

I am using an AI plane and a flight plan made using PlanG. I use airtafficfx to insert the tanker ( a pretty cool programme BTW)

Cheers, Mark

[neutrino]

Mark, did you try this:
http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=SEARCH1&fsec=89&fname=kc135t_navy_drogue.zip

Inside that package there is a very nice bgl file (inside the 'Traffic' folder) with KC-135 flight plan from KSAN (San Diego) to KLAS (Las Vegas), leaving at 19:00 Local Pacific, alt 23,000 ft. Once it gets to 23,000 ft, it flies level at about 280 kts and you can refuel. It does not go back and forth as you describe.

If you want to use FSRecorder 2.0, I can also send you a recording with a KC-135 flying at 5,000 feet, 250 kts over San Diego, and you can start the recorded flight any time you want. I used this recording for my refueling video  

[markturner]

Thanks for the tip, I have that but did not use the flight plan. Will look into it.

If you dont mind buying it, this: http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=airtrfcfx is a fantastic little programme that lets you set a tanker of your choice take off from your airpost or appear over head. You can make it fly a pre made plan ( I used PlanG, here: http://www.tasoftware.co.uk ) and it also does formations, parked traffic etc .


BTW, do you guys know of any reason why the gauge would not work properly with the VRS superbug? Jon Blum says he would not recommend it - I think because of the way the Bug models fuel transfer etc. But I get the feeling that they have not actualy looked into it in detail, as they have their own version coming out soon as a payware addon , sort of like the AIcarriers mod, but for tankers.

Cheers, Mark

[neutrino]

BTW, do you guys know of any reason why the gauge would not work properly with the VRS superbug? Jon Blum says he would not recommend it - I think because of the way the Bug models fuel transfer etc. But I get the feeling that they have not actually looked into it in detail, as they have their own version coming out soon as a payware addon , sort of like the AIcarriers mod, but for tankers.

Cheers, Mark

The refueling gauge should work on any aircraft - it only adds fuel until all tanks are 100% full. I haven't tested it with the VRS Superbug. My guess as to why Jon would not recommend it, is because he hasn't tested it, so he can't be 100% sure that it will work properly. But as long as you have a backup of your Panel.cfg file, there is no problem to try it. If everything runs OK - keep it and have fun