It was on Night One. 8 Italian Tornados took off from Al Dhafra in Abu Dhabi; 1 went U/S after take-off when the landing gear wouldn't retract, one crew had to take the spare but eventually all 7 RV'd with 2 BDA-equipped USAF KC-135s. 6 couldn't refuel, which is hardly surprising at night in bad turbulence given what a sod the BDA is to prod even at the best of times in CAVU daytime, let alone when carrying 5x MK83 retarded 1000lb bombs, 2 BOZ pods, 2x drop tanks and 2x AIM-9L. One aircraft, flown by Major Gianmarco Bellini and Captain Maurizio Cocciolone refuelled successfuly and subsequently destroyed its assigned target, but shortly afterwards they were shot down by a ZSU 2-34 and ejected, surviving to become POW.

What a crazy list of events.

Theoretically, I think it would be possible to do this using a machine vision camera on the basket looking at the receiver and monitoring/correcting the relative movement of the basket - to some extent abstracting tanker movements. I think there would be a lot of practical problems associated with this - and you would always end up being led by large receiver movements and having a fairly limited zone of movement for the basket. In practical terms I don't think it would overall be as useful for the extra effort. Overall, just calming the basket down in relation to the receiver is a big step forward (from an engineering perspective - never been 'lucky' enough to have to do it for real).

Link this with the previously mentioned receiver aircraft HUD 'ideal picture' markers (adjustable for aircraft configuration etc) and it seems like a good way of reducing workload.