AI KC135 Animated Boom?

Wing_Z

Wing_Z

Charter Member 2011
There's an AI Tristar at flightsim.com today which deploys its hoses over 5,500ft.
I have a VC10 which does something similar.
It would be really nice to have the Boeing, too.
Can an existing model be tweaked to deploy its boom say at 15,000ft?
If not, does someone not have an irresistible urge to do a multi-LOD model for AI :)
 
...and of course I've had this model all along, but never read the readme that says there is an alternate AI model.cfg which does exactly what you say!
Exactly what I needed, many thanks Tom.
 
Good to know, thanks for the info.

Would love to see a Victor & Vulcan Tanker combo for AI. I know UKMIL has a Victor AI tanker, but members only I believe.

Off to get the Tristar :running:
Jamie
 
Hey Wing_Z ~
How did you get the boom to lower? Is there a config entry or special set up I'm missing? The installation readme is kinda sparse.

I unzipped the file and placed it in my FS Aircraft folder. I've set up an AI flight and it does evething I've asked it to except lower the refueling boom.
Cruise=290
Alt=20K

View attachment 9322

Thanks, TC, for the info on where to find Mike's 135.

Thanks,
Duckie
 
If you're talking about Mike's AI model, just open the model.cfg and change the model name. Both model's are already in the folder.
 
Yes as Tom says, just open the model.cfg and change it to:

[models]
normal=kc135ai

I had this thing sitting on my HDD for ever, and never noticed it carried two mdl files: kc135ai.mdl and kc135.mdl.

Nice screen Duckie - let's see some after the hookup! ;)
 
Took the thought directly from my mind.
A2A refueling without fuel is like...well, I can think of a couple of things.
Would be a great addon.
 
There was a gauge i saw a while ago, which while not as good as Rob Barendregt's looked quite interesting. in the gauge you set airspeed altitude and heading and so long as you were within a fractio of those perameters you got refuelled.
 
Thanks WZ and TC.

Now, let's see if I can line this thing up and take a drink. Pictures to follow...maybe! :kilroy:

Duckie :wavey:
 
PhantomP said:
Speaking of refueling,what ever happened to Rob Barendregt's air refueling addon? Thanks:icon_lol:
Click to expand...

Okay,

I did some Beta testing on this system. Some pics below....

The reasons it never saw the light of day are numerous, but mainly....

1: it requires the use of a payware radar gauge. Whilst I'd recommend this to everyone, not everyone can afford to shell out for it. Also the gauge requires the buyer to set the gauge up themselves, not everyone has the skills and/or ability to do so. Forevery person that finds it simple there will likely be numerous others who don't.

2. Rob's Gauge also requires the user to implement them on each required aircraft themselves, same complications as above.

3. There were some issues with planes jumping about/erratic flight behaviour, due to (if I understood this correctly?) the rate at which the sim updates the AI traffic. I found this problem minimal and easily liveable with, a small price for such fun.

4. There were some issues with some Autopilot gauges, I experienced this with the JF Vulcan (which was a major bummer as I really wanted to take her on the Black Buck missions!). I also experienced a few problems with planes with incorrectly activated autopilots (cfg/air entries). Whilst fixable, it again requires a certain amount of knowledge, There were some I still haven't solved yet and I've been arround FS/CFS for years.

5. To get the best of it, you need to set up AI tanker flights and have useable tanker models (those with hoses/droughes that extend when needed were at the time thin on the ground, better now though). I twould require learning TTools and Yroute (or similar) and maybe even AFCAD for the required parking.

The upshot of all that is that due to the complications and skill level required Rob would have been flooded with support requests for a freeware release, the cons outweighed the pros unfortunately.

These problems asside, it worked great and is immense fun. It does take out the skill required to do it by hand flying, but when you've been flying for hours and your tanks are full of vapour, the last thing you need is to cock up the link up on the 'pretend' refuel and have to start again. This system actually lets you refuel and let's the AP fly the plane to the hose and keep it there. Much better than the JF Falcon/Tornado system too.

I do regularly use it, very happily :d
Jamie
 
Aside from using gauges and such, you can set a keystroke to add fuel. Once that's done, you can get as close to the tanker as you like (or can) and add the fuel manually.
 
PhantomP,

see my post above for the reasons it was never released. It is not publically available I was just privelaged to be a beta tester.

Jamie.

PS. No more PM's please, I gave my word I would not distribute this and I will most definately besticking to it.
 
Hi Guys,

Sorry I've missed this thread upto now, and thanks to Charl (Wing_Z) for pointing it out to me.

And Jamie, thanks for respecting my wishes about not re-distributing my beta to others !
About that: the reason I request this on beta's, is a very simple one: for pre-versions of any of my gauges, I just want to know exactly who has what; otherwise, upon a release, it's impossible for me to give proper support with all those pre-versions floating around. And I have learned that the hard way over the years :isadizzy:.

Now, about me not releasing this "refuel/auto-track/auto-follow" solution, which I advertised last year, sofar: I really couldn't have said it any better or more precise then Jamie did a few posts back.

To add to that: In general, I am very reluctant to release anything (freeware or not) to the public, if it doesn't adhere to my own standards for:
- Is it comprehensable ?
- Is it fool-proof ?
- Is it stable (within limitations specified), and without apperant bugs ?
If only because I want to avoid to be swamped with support questions.
And this "feature" clearly doesn't qualify.

For those who know my work in FS-design: I'm always looking to create addon stuff that:
A. I (me) am interrested in myself.
B. Is a kind of a "niche" in FS-design.
And to that, this "feature" DOES qualify (as Jamie can confirm :icon_lol: ).

That said:
The two major technical problems that I'm facing in this addon, and which made me give up the idea:
1. The accuracy with which FS gives the exact location (in its variables) of an AI-aircraft or user-flown aircraft in any point in time.
In short: that s*cks. Normally, you wouldn't notice this at all, but in an application where you want to control a fixed distance (within a meter or so) between a user-aircraft and a AI-tanker, both flying at 200 Knots or so, the result IS influenced strongly.
Example: calculating aircraft speed based on the difference on read coördinates and elapsed time each 50 msec, can give fluctiations of up to 40% in calculated speed.There are enough tricks to "average" this, but still.....

2. I'm relying on Eric's (payware) Radar gauge, to get the position of a selected AI-tanker and it's heading/speed, in XML variables (this is an undocumented feature of Eric's gauge). However, on occasion and with short spikes, these variables contain erratic values (Eric couldn't pinpoint this problem). Probably system-dependant.

The result being, that the distance between a user-aircraft and AI-tanker, visibly might quite vary. To the extent that sometimes the user aircraft suddenly is even ahead of the Ai-tanker on occasion.
For me reasons enough to not release it, since I can think of no better working alternative implementation.

However, if there's still interrest in it (given the above), I'm willing to mail you an UNSUPPORTED version for you to try.
Just send me a PM with your Email adress, and I'll mail you a test package; I just need some time to bundle everything up again, since I haven't touched it for almost a year.

Needless to say, this package isn't for the "casual" flightsimmer, because it isn't a plug-and-play feature.
And you DO need to have Eric's Radar gauge (V2, the payware version) installed, otherwise it's pointless.

:ernae: Rob
 
Rob,

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain your process to us "consumers". :ernae:

Steve
 
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