NOTAM: To flyers who fly 'probe' enabled aircraft in Europe... or even if NOT...
I will be flying the 'victor' refueling tanker for the next few days from KFPY, south 180 track, then turn around at the southern mountains, north on 360, at 12,000 feet – FL120 STD QNA – and am interested in 'hot' flyers who want to try air-to-air REFUELING (AAR) in suitably equiped aircraft, well ANY aircraft... The tanker will maintain, under autopilot, 220 knots (KTAS), at the said 12,000 feet, either 180 or 360, under the callsign GA006. The flights will commence about noon, or before, UTC, and close about 20:00 UTC. The track can be followed using http://test.fgx.ch, or other mp map URLS. Click on 'GA006' to localize... Reason: (a) I have tried with several aircraft over the last few days, and learned that this is QUITE difficult, but I hope NOT impossible! (b) The present suggested pps (Hz) is 10 when you set up –multiplay=, but FG 2.11 has fill-in extrapolation code when fgfs packets do not arrive in time, so maybe this is too high. This is the basic question... So the idea is to reduce this IFF this fill-in code helps, ie does its job... The theoretic idea is that with this code we can reduce the bandwidth used by 10 Hz to perhaps 2-4 Hz, but this needs to be FULLY tested, and confirmed... Now I have tried this over several day, in several aircraft – A-10, f-14b, a4 and failed, FAILED to touch the trailing drogues... it is TOUGH... autopilots help you get to the 'zone' but it needs manual flying to get to the RIGHT PLACE... If you are using a joystick maybe you need to even adjust the dead spot and the 'sensitivity' of the inputs... lots of learning, understanding and doing fgdata xml changes... And I have had a few pilots joining in ad hoc, but so far no one has actually contacted with the trailing outer wing drogues... The 'victor' can refuel 2 aircraft at a time... and I would LOVE to see/capture that... One, french I think, got so frustrated at his attempts, began firing missiles at the tanker. Thankfully, he MISSED, but was CLOSE ;=)) Also if you alert me to your attempt to refuel from my tanker, via mp chat, email, fgcom, … AND I am on board at the time -: (a) I will offer a VIRTUAL bottle of good Bordeau rouge to the first pilot who maintains drogue contact for say a minute, or more ;=)) (b) I will take some screen shots and post them. Be warned, during a screen shots (F3), fgfs stops sending mp packets for up to a second or so, and in the close fgfs the fill-in (extrapolation) code is activated, with some interesting, and sometimes quite alarming effects... Also I have heard others mention that the live metar update can also cause mp packet delays. The tanker will be flying under the 'Fair weather' scenario to avoid this. Maybe you should choose this as well... I really seek help from other pilots to analyse this multiplayer bandwidth situation. We have chosen 10 Hz, but WHY? Can less than 10 Hz be used with no adverse effect? That is the BIG question... Simply, what really is the optimum packets-per-second (pps) rate? Maybe it changes depending on circumstances... We know the lower the Hz the lower the bandwidth used by FGMS servers... but can the extrapolation code fill-in for the missing packets? Is 10 Hz good? Should it be higher, or lower depending on circumstance.. Lots to learn... Of course I am sure there are OTHER ideas... Hope you can help, and have some FUN at the same time;=)). Look forward to seeing you on my rear view... and I will take some pics... Regards, Geoff. CC: to users list... BCC: to others... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis & visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list Flightgear-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
