Aerial Refueling

[[frl]myke 15]

Okay, thanks. I just thought it would be helpful if the flight level of your vehicle could be also showed in the hint or a offset (You are XXm lower/higher, somewhat along these lines).

Also for the tanker you should use getPosASL.

Reason: as long you're over water, everything is fine but try it over land. The HUD shows radar altitude which logically jumps around with ground level changes. I guess you see the problem. ;)

[Feint 137]

Good advice. OK, thanks.

[richardmetzdorf 1]

this look cool

[eegore 11]

Man am I glad to see you are working on this again.

[Feint 137]

So I've been working on this Aerial Refueling Module for a while now and unfortunately it usually takes a back burner to other projects I'm working on. But after replaying Take On Helicopters the other day, I realized that it would be a good platform for this addon since the maps are so large. The main problem with aerial refueling is getting in behind the tanker perfectly only to have the KC-130 or KC-767 turn around just before capture. You can do it on Chernarus, but most maps are smaller than Chernarus (except two huge maps in TOH). So I loaded up TOH and rewrote some of the sqf files and got it in that game. The nice thing about this is that it gives me more time to get closer to the tanker. The other nice thing is that whatever changes I make to the TOH development of this mod gets translated perfectly over to Arma2.

Two aircraft have already been released by the community that are compatible with this module and they work perfectly right out of the box. But for those aircraft that don't have the correct memory points in their models, something else needs to be done. The best solution I can come up with so far is to place a red sphere in the approximate location of the refueling probe. Check out this video to see what I mean:

The red sphere represents the position of the refueling probe on the planes I am flying in this video. The aim is to get that sphere into the refueling basket or drogue.

Side note: The nice thing about TOH is that it has ropes implemented for static line missions. So theoretically, it's possible to replace the refueling drogues with flexible ropes that move in the wind and that you have to actively try to stay attached to. So that's something I'm thinking about doing. I don't even know if it's possible to attach to a rope and keep control over the plane, but it's worth exploring. If it doesn't work, then I can just keep what I have in this video. And anyway, I'm not sure I have enough control over the aircraft to use a rope drogue.

Please note: In this video, the AI pilot of the tanker is jinking and diving all over the place because of the mountains in the map that are below us. Once the land levels out, so does the AI pilot's flying. If anyone knows how to better control the AI pilot so they fly straight and level no matter what, please tell me. The only thing I can think of is to remove the AI pilot and somehow have the plane just moving from one position to another the way the red spheres do in the tutorials in Arma2.

Hopefully, with the larger maps in Arma3, this will work in that game as well. Fingers crossed!

[Feint 137]

If you are making a plane that is capable of refueling other planes, please name the drogue "refuel_drogue". If you are making a plane with more than one refueling drogue, then name them (from left to right), "refuel_drogue0", "refuel_drogue1", "refuel_drogue2", "refuel_drogue3".

That way, I can look for those parts using selectionPosition and I don't have to worry about classnames and such.

If you are making a refueling tanker with a boom, then name the tip of the boom, "refuel_tip".

That is all.