More tanker problems

[Jabberwocky]

Hello again

I have a problem with refueling in the air 707TT and EC-137. On my computer, I get a Tacan instrument less and no refuel-hatch on the 137 ... while MD-GRK gets them. We started with the same parameters and still, my 137 remains unrefuelable ...

fgfs --aircraft=EC-137D --airport=kmci

still, he gets a 137 with refuel hatch and switch to open it, I don't ... any ideas? When I start the 707TT, the tanker, I can refuel others, but the upp Tacan instrument is missing as well. Same effect.

J.

[themadgreek]

I even sent him my 707 files and he still didn't get the hatch... seems to be some initialization problem... but I am no expert by any means.

[Johan G]

...we should really exercise air-to-air refueling more till we can do it in the dark.

Speaking of that, I took a look at an old ATP-56A (9 MB pdf), and found that there almost universally is lighting on the boom, lighting on the pod and lighting or reflexes on the drogue (with the notable exception of Russian drogues). In addition boom equipped aircraft often have a system of lighting under the belly that helps the pilot to keep the correct horizontal and vertical distance.

Boom lights
White light on tip of boom

Pilot director lights (PDL), two parallel light strips under the belly (controlled by the position of the boom )
The left one indicating the vertical distance Aft <-- [ U > > = < < D ]
The right one indicating the horizontal distance [ A # # = # # F ] --> Forvard

Pod and drogue lights
Both Russian and Western systems uses three colors, red, amber and green, and seem to almost universally use them in the following way:

Before connection
Steady red: Not ready
Steady amber: Ready to connect

On connection
Steady green: Conected and fuel flowing
No lights: Dry contact/refuel complete
Flashing red: Break away

In addition there are often floodlights on the tanker and sometimes on the receiver.

See also these links: AAR of the F-35 - IL-78 Midas while refueling (PDF) - Lit drogue - C-17 getting refueled (YouTube, 1 min)