Originally Posted by
Tankertrashnav
No problem - he would be having implicit faith in the tanker navigator to give him steers to complete the RV in good time for the Lightning top up
We had the same primitive UHF/DF and A/A TACAN installation in the VC10K for many years.
Later came a TACAN with a 'beacon' (BCN) system. If the tanker crew selects BCN / INV, then a receiver with only a basic TACAN in A/A T/R mode will receiver bearing and distance to the tanker.
The DF system in the A310MRTT covers 30-406 MHz and is vastly more accurate than that old thing we had in the VC10K. It also uses a proper RMI display for the pilots and a digital DDRMI for the ARO. This makes setting up RVs incredibly easy as the DDRMI tab also enables a continuous display of RV'B', RV'C' and RV'D' turn range data to be calculated automatically.
But realistically, modern receiver radar and MIDS information is so good that tanker controlled RVs are far less necessary nowadays than back when the earth was still cooling.