Refueling in mid-air idea.

[Bishop]

It's possible to give a unit a refuel option right? Like the refueling trucks have... So, what if we give that option to a plain and match it's speed with a fighter-jet and then pressing the refuel command. In that way we can refuel mid-air.

I would like to know if anyone has ever thought about that and if anyone knows if this is possible or not...

-Bishop[/u]

[Messiah]

possible with easy scripting - just have a trigger that looks for the jets relative position to the fuel plane and then adds an action to refuel - that links to a script that gradually refules the plane...

now, dunno if you can add refuling abilities to planes...

[Bishop]

Yes, just thought this could be interresting for some missions. Thanks Messiah...

[Skaircro]

I only found this topic the other day, I was curious about how to do this aswell.
I found an easy solution.

If you add the line "transportFuel=3000;" to the config.cpp as part of the class cfgvehicles, I asume you could refuel from any vehicle. I tested it with Capt Moore's C130.

The problem is that you have to get quite close to refuel, which can be quite tricky inflight!  ;D

I'd say the 3000 is the quantity of fuel you want the vehicle to carry. The fuel truck carries 3000(litres?).


I took the pic from the ground just to make it easier!  

[Bishop]

Great! Thanks!

[HotShot]

The problem is that you have to get quite close to refuel, which can be quite tricky inflight!

Cant you just add a fuel cable (see pictures) on the back of the tanker? It might look at little bit weird when stationary but it would mean that you wouldn't have to get as close to the main body of the plane which would be easy to crash in too.

http://www.militaryaircraft.co.uk/usaf/tanker.htm

Pictures:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=tbn:qOu4knjKXIEC:www.militaryaircraft.co.uk/usaf/c130fuel.jpg
http://www.militaryaircraft.co.uk/usaf/f14anda6.jpg

[Skaircro]

Possibly, I'm not sure how the refueling actually works, if it works from a radius from the centre of the model or from the extremities of the model.
If it is the later it would be ok.
I'll give it a try and let you know.


I was thinking of building a kc-135r stratotanker at some stage for a bit of fun.
It has a pivoting bar at the back instead of the cable, so it wouldnt look so strange when stationary.
I was thinking of using the 'flaps up/down' command to raise and lower the bar.

[HotShot]

Can you make the refueling 'arm' lift up by making OFP think it was a flap? I remember some addons from Flight Simulator using this method to 'trick' the game.

[Skaircro]

Yeah.. when you edit the 3d model you just adjust a few items to make the game think it is using the flaps.
Thats how IkaR's f14 tomcat works to sweep the wings, and how I guess Colorchanger's tornado would have worked if they could have released the sweep wing version as well (It doesnt work with stores under the wings as they end up pointing outwards).

In relation to the position of refueling, it does work!!  
It seems to work off the 'Geometry' of the model.
The reason I had to get so close to the plane to refuel before was because Capt Moore didnt include the tail assembly in the geomety (most likely to avoid it hitting the ground when you take off too steep). So you had to get close to the main fuselage.
Then you add the arm out the back and you have plenty of room!
It does look a little dodgy when your refueling quite a distance from the arm but you could tweak it a bit to make it look more real.