This.
Walk the throttles, don’t look at the basket. That’s half the trick.
Perhaps that’s why keeping connected with the viper is so hard, only one throttle, no walking to be done. I tried sawing it, but I haven’t managed to be fine enough with it. Perhaps popping the boards could help.
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Sawing is a good idea. There is never a really fitting throttle position, I keep it moving all the time.
(Reminds me that I have to try refueling the F-16 but I am very rusty with that jet. I just barely made the cold start, takeoff and landing today without watching a tutorial).
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For some reason I seem to find Harrier plugging easier than just sitting there behind the tanker in the dang Viper. Makes no sense. Perhaps the enforcement of the “Don’t look at the basket” idea. In VR is just magically goes in, usually. Though I’ve not tried it in about a month…hmmm
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Gah, reminds me that I still haven’t refueled in VR…
As for the Viper: I have trust issues. I’d rather look at the boom and see where it goes. The DCSW boom operator is bad at his job so I feel uneasy when I don’t see what he does.
I had a good laugh at the Grim Reapers (IIRC) tutorial guy who kept yelling at his wingmen “is it in yet?” 
Time to resurrect this one:
https://forums.mudspike.com/t/this-was-great-one-of-the-best-dcs-videos-ive-seen-in-a-long-time/9663
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Awesome 
I finally made my first proper Hornet flight in VR. Aerial refueling, flying around a bit, another aerial refueling, and then a Case 1 landing.
Easy peasy!!
Sadly voice attack didn’t hear some of my screenshot calls. And I only caught a one wire. But the approach was nice even though the resolution of the Rift S isn’t quite good enough to see the ball properly.
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Aaaand some Air-to-air, just trying out the radar modes and weapons.
I actually got my ass handed to me by a Mig-21 at one point… man I am rusty…
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Personally I find basket refueling a bunch easier in the Hornet vs the boom in the A-10C.
If you let that MiG-21 get close, and you don’t know it’s launched on you, you can indeed go down.
The AI always know when an IR missile has been launched at them, I guess they’re always looking. I’ve been taken out by Iranian F-4 AIM-9s several times. If you let them get WVR, it’s a lot harder to prevent.
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I lost sight on it, and tried to zoom away at low level and hide between the ground clutter while searching.
…the Mig21 is faster than the Hornet though, and he lost neither sight nor radar contact. He caught up and shot me with his gun. Super embarrassing.
I agree. The basket just sits there while you come to it. The boom requires you maintain perfect position and then the AI starts ham-fisted-ly swinging the boom around. I presume in reality the boom is easier as the pilot has less work but our AI boom operator needs some training to get us to that.
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This.
The boom operator needlessly points the boom at your nose instead of just letting you get into position and then move the boom.
Among other stuff. That guy is just not very good at his job.
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Yea, let’s all petition for a player controller boom operator slot. It can fall under the CA license. It doesn’t even have to be a high-fidelity thing, just like FC3 quality.
I think this is one of those cases where realism be damned make the boom indestructible and incapable of damaging the plane and move always in function of the plane.
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Oh. Yeah.
Reminds me of the bug a year ago when the boom operator kept poking my A-10 until it started burning.
In that case an uncollidable boom would be better.
But otherwise I personally would prefer to have the boom collidable.
If I remember right there was a thread over on the ED forums about boom refueling where an actual boom operator chimed in on how it’s supposed to really work. If I understood him correctly the boom should offer some resistance, making it feel more ridge when you hook up instead of the wet noodle we have now. Or put another way, we shouldn’t be able to move the boom around when hooked up like we can now.
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