Skip to content

Fat Cow

A Fat Cow is a CH-47 that lands in the field and becomes a forward refuel and rearm point for other helicopters. The US Army calls it "a rapidly employed FARP": the Chinook carries its fuel in tanks inside the hold and hands it out on the ground.

DCS cannot pass fuel from one aircraft to another, so CTLD lays out a small FARP next to the cow: an invisible helipad, a fuel depot behind the ramp, a few crates and three soldiers standing by. The FARP's stock is exactly what the cow carries. When it is gone, it is gone.

There are two ways to get a cow: fly one yourself, or ask CTLD for an AI one. Everything is in F10 → CTLD → Fat Cow.

Flying a cow (CH-47F)

  1. Land in a logistic zone.

  2. Load what you want to carry:

    • Load, then a loadout: the crates go straight into the hold. Each loadout carries two 800 gal tanks (4 800 kg of jet fuel) and weapons:
    Menu Loadouts
    Load (Apache) 40 Hellfires (25 laser, 15 radar) and 2 400 rounds of 30 mm; 60 Hellfires (38 laser, 22 radar) and 1 200 rounds; 40 laser Hellfires and 2 400 rounds; 60 laser Hellfires and 1 200 rounds
    Load → Russian Ka-50: 40 Vikhr and 920 rounds of 2A42 (half HE, half AP), or 60 Vikhr and 460 rounds; Mi-24P: 32 Ataka or 32 Shturm, with 500 rounds of GSh-30
    Load → Mixed 20 Hellfires (12 laser, 8 radar), 20 Vikhr, 1 200 rounds of 30 mm and 460 of 2A42; 20 laser Hellfires, 16 Ataka, 1 200 rounds of 30 mm and 500 of GSh-30

    That is 6 400 to 8 200 kg in 5 to 8 crates, what a CH-47F lifts with 80 % of its internal fuel: no need to fill the tanks. - or one crate at a time, Request a crate: a fuel tank (2 400 kg), 20 laser or 20 radar Hellfires, 1 200 rounds of 30 mm, 20 Vikhr, 16 Ataka, 16 Shturm, 460 rounds of 2A42 HE or AP, 500 rounds of GSh-30, then load it like any CTLD crate.

    Unload the Fat Cow crates empties the hold, to make up another loadout. 3. Fly to where the attack helicopters need you, and land. 4. Deploy the Fat Cow FARP. The FARP opens a few seconds later and you are told what it holds. The crates stay in your hold: the fuel never leaves the Chinook. 5. The other helicopters land next to you and rearm and refuel through their ground crew menu, as on any FARP. 6. Pack the Fat Cow FARP, or simply take off: the FARP is packed for you. What was not used goes back into your crates, the hold gets lighter, and a crate left empty disappears.

Fat Cow stock tells you what you still have, on the ground or in the air. If you leave your slot while the FARP is open, the FARP stays, with what it still holds, until a pilot takes that slot again: it then closes, emptied, and the new pilot starts with an empty hold.

When the stock runs out

A helicopter asking for more than what is left gets what is left, and its ground crew answers "Unable to comply". A request on an empty FARP gets "We don't have this in stock".

Asking for an AI cow

Any player whose aircraft is not a cow can Request a Fat Cow, on the ground or in the air, and pick its loadout. A CH-47 takes off from the friendly logistic zone nearest to you, and you are told where it comes from, how far it is and when it should join.

The cow then does what your flight tells it, and nothing on its own:

Command What the cow does
Land here lands about 120 m to your left and opens its FARP one minute after touching down
Take off packs its FARP, lifts off and orbits where it stands
Hold here packs its FARP if needed and orbits over your position
Join us packs its FARP if needed and follows your flight
RTB packs its FARP and flies back to base, where it disappears

So you can lift off to hover-taxi onto its FARP, or reposition, without the cow leaving.

Fat Cow status tells where your flight's cow is (phase, distance and bearing), when it should join, and what it still holds, before it has landed too.

Request a Fat Cow opens the list of loadouts, the same as a piloted cow's (Apache at the top, Russian and Mixed one level down): pick what your flight needs. It is always a CH-47, whatever you fly. One cow per flight.

Land in the open

Pick open ground for Land here: a helicopter sent to land at the edge of a forest hovers there and never touches down.

What a FARP still holds

FARP status, in the same menu, tells what the Fat Cow FARP you are at still holds (the nearest one within 2 km), whoever it belongs to.