Agreed, Dan! The 'prodding' program in the VC10K simulator was useless and simply made pilots think that they'd never be able to achieve contact in the real aeroplane.
In that video, the clip of the broken, flailing hose is actually an AMX refuelling from an ItAF B707. What it doesn't show is that, about a second before contact the hose suddenly moved forward, the brake came on, the operator didn't put the red light on - so the AMX pilot made contact against a hard hose. Hence the hose failed to move in and the resulting 'wave' came back and broke the drogue connection. Also the wire from the hose flailed against the AMX canopy, badly cracking it - I can't remember whether that caused a decompression, but I gather that the nose looked like it had been riddled with bullets when the jet was inspected after landing...
I see the Chinese pilots have adopted the classic tactic of achieving the pre-contact position by passing quickly through it, then chasing the basket...
