The title covers it really, is it possible in a SP mission to get the wingman to land with you, refuel, rearm and take off with you again to continue the mission or refuel by tanker and continue?
Hey @Ragnar!
As far as I know, the first isn’t really possible, the AI always seems to call quits once it lands. The second one is quite tricky. The mission maker should have programmed in a refueling session for that specific leg of the flight, otherwise the AI pilots will refuse to refuel.
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We need a “recruit” command like in Arma…mid-mission…running out of ammo and ideas…oh hey Mr. B-52 hanging out on the ramp…fancy a sortie?
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Best I’ve ever managed to accomplish in the editor is to despawn the wingman and spawn new ones fueled and equipped with the same callsign. Depending on how you do it, and where the player is, it can work seamlessly to immersion breaking.
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It’s also highly unrealistic. In all but the most dire circumstances would a flight of fighters hot-pit and jet off to continue fighting. If it’s come to that, some planning has gone horribly wrong.
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We have needed something of that nature in flights sims from the beginning. Being able to get the AI to divert to a secondary airfield when damaged is something else that was always lacking in any of the sims I played. I always hated having to end a mission without landing because the AI planes were damaged and I knew they would end up running out of fuel before they got home or in the landing pattern after having flown past multiple friendly airfields…
The only scenario I see it as plausible is a Battle of Britain scenario during WW2.
Wheels
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Harriers in ODS basically did this. The pilots would briefly rest and then take off again from a forward airbase - one pilot ran three sorties before flying to his home field. The jets would sometimes even be refueled hot.
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I’d say this is more of an exception than the rule, but, it was not uncommon for Hogs and Harriers during ODS to land at forwards airfields for gas and bombs multiple times before heading home. In more recent times I’ve seen the USMC during exercises set up FARPs on airfields and have Hornets use them for gas between sorties vs heading home. So it is trained for to some degree.
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It was always a capability for the “the big one” for the USAF. Other air forces like the IAF have done it extensively in real combat. These days in low intensity conflicts, not so much.
Those are the exceptions. You’ll rarely if ever see vipers or hornets pull such shenanigans.
Spawning sounds like an elegant solution - cheers 
I agree re. realism but this isn’t real life 
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“BLASPHEMY, Oh, you’ll smoke a turd in hell for that!”
Bonus points for knowing the movie without using any search engines. 
Wheels