Refueling using FG multiplayer

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20130420: For the last few days I have been flying a refueling sortie, as GA006, from around noon until around 6 or 7 pm, in the Victor, by Alex Park, from LFPY (GMap) due South, until around Toulouse, then due North back to Paris, usually around 12,00 feet, travelling at 220 knots, and have been joined by a few others wanting to 'challenge' their flying skills.

The callsigns jano, N-TSKT, JackyB, SE-JG, F-JJTH, ECP-BLK, ECP-STK were among them, in various aircraft, lightning, f-14b, Mirage, m2000, A-10, a4, A-6E, Citation-II among them. Sorry if I missed some callsigns or aricraft but it got quite busy at times.

There are some blips in the multiplay code which add to the difficulty, and perhaps make it impossible at this stage, but there are some ideas on trying to fix this. See the external links below.

At times I also flew a second Victor as GA007, as observer and photgrapher, and below are some of the shots taken. Sometimes it is necessary to use a 3rd aircraft, since using F3 - take screen shot - either in the tanker or the aircraft to be refueled, really disturbs the fgfs mp packet flow, and the aircraft will slide back or forward - the so called rubber-band effect! And this can happen at other times, where the 'reason' is not so obvious.

Luckily for us there is presently NO collision detection between your aircraft and the multiplay generated aricraft, so you can not have a crash, so be brave and just push in ;=)) This would be another interesting future code fix to really add to the realism.

Note: These are full size images taken in full screen mode, so the images can take some time to load...

GA006 sorties - Images taken by GA006

Click image to see at full size in a new window
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 001 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 002 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 003 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 004 20130416
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 005 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 006 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 007 20130416 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 008 20130416
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 009 20130417 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 010 20130417 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 011 20130418 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 012 20130418
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 013 20130418 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 014 20130419 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 015 20130419 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 016 20130419
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 017 20130419 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 018 20130419 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 019 20130419 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 020 20130419
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 021 20130420 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 022 20130420 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 023 20130420 Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 024 20130421
Image 1375x876 fgfs GA006 025 20130421      

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GA007 sorties - Images taken by GA007

Click image to see at full size in a new window
Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 001 20130417 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 002 20130418 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 003 20130419 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 004 20130419
Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 005 20130420 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 006 20130420 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 007 20130420 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 008 20130421
Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 009 20130421 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 010 20130421 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 011 20130421 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 012 20130421
Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 013 20130421 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 014 20130421 Image 1916x1014 fgfs GA007 015 20130421  

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Some external links:
http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19756

On capturing and replaying the session:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Network_tools_usage

And on the PAF forum:
http://equipe-flightgear.forumactif.com/t1096p15-vol-en-formation-avec-un-fg-patche#20638

Some previous videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWn6_RFp97Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGHRDrc_n98

Some (older) wikis about air-to-air refueling:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Aerial_refueling
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Implement_aerial_refueling_capability

It seems some work has been done to try to 'patch' the multiplayer code to improve the situation, but this latest code is not yet in the FlightGear source. A link to information about this patch:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Mp-patch
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Improving_real_close_formation_flight

In general formation flying, and in particular refueling takes a LOT of practice. And to really get into it you may need to modify your joystick configuration file, to tweak the sensitivity and dead spot...

If you have Google Earth installed fgtracker_4604556.kml is the pretty boring track of the last flight of GA006. The tracks of all refueling sorties can be seen at http://mpserver15.flightgear.org/modules/fgtracker/ as can ALL flights using mpserver14, or any other FGMS server with tracker enabled and connected to mpserver15 tracker client.

HAVE FUN ;=))

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