but I don’t understand if this means he started at 300kts and reduced to 210 throughout the trip?
More importantly though I’m trying to find out what the ACTUAL ALT & SPD of the kdc10 is during a refueling operation (in REAL LIFE).
Also, can anyone tell me why my pitch is so high while I’m on autopilot?
*I’ve only posted once before and I had an incredible volume of responses from the community. Thank you in advance for any help I’m sure ill receive here and as usual I hope I’m posting this in the right place.
If I would have guessed he probably cruised at 300 then descended at 250 kts. Also decrease you weight to avoid the nose pulling up. Also do t go too fast while you are climbing. :)
You’re going way too slow, 280-300 knots is a better speed to avoid the nose pitching this high up, a bit up is normal but this isn’t. The 210 knots just doesn’t make sense unless he’s running out of fuel or on approach.
Check this post out for more help regarding refueling
And this too, may I add. At the end of the video are speeds and altitudes. I should probably update the topic that Matthew_Chan linked to the speeds that Mark supplied.
Yes, I planed for 300KIAS and reduced later.
When waiting for receivers it might be helpfull to reduce speed for longer endurance.
Another reason might be to allow a slow receiver like A10 or C130 to keep up with you.
Speed for refueling operation itself depends on the receiver as well as the attitude. In real live as well as in IF. There is a post about refueling describing real live procedures including speed and attitude for aircrafts available in IF.
For your second question, the KDC10 needs Trim be set according to overall wight and wight distribution to keep it levelled. Especially at low speed trim is essential for the DC10 family. Below 220KIAS flaps might be needed also to keep it levelled, but this results in drag and therefore higher fuelconsumption.
Mark did some tutorials about DC10/MD11 flying in general, they are really helpful to handelt his airframe in IF.
Trim won’t impact the nose up attitude at a particular speed/flap setting. All trim does (for the elevator) is reduce or zero out the force required on the stick or yoke to maintain a certain rate of descent or climb, or maintain a fixed altitude.
Here’s what happens… say you’re flying at a fixed altitude, but because of your speed and weight distribution, in order to maintain that altitude, you have to apply constant pressure on the yoke or stick. Trim tabs are small tabs on the control surfaces you can adjust that will force the elevator (using elevator for this example) to assume that position with no input from you. After setting the trim, the control surface will move to the same position you had to manually hold, so now with no input from you, you’re flying at a fixed altitude. But, the attitude of the plane is the same as when there was no trim and you were applying constant pressure to maintain altitude.
If you’re at a heavy weight (full of fuel and cargo, more than 500,000lbs or so) it may help to add 10 or 15 degrees of flaps at this speed. Check Mark’s tutorials (linked below) to see what flaps he uses at 210 KIAS after takeoff when the aircraft is heavy, and before landing when the aircraft is lighter. Good luck and safe landings!
