In this up position he is going to look into his rear view mirror and look for the refueling boom. He's looking for the area where the boom probe slides out of the boom itself. There are markings to indicate how far the probe has extended out of the boom. Throttle movements are tiny, and usually done by walking the throttles . This means the pilot will advance one throttle at a time by rotating his wrist slightly sideways to move a single throttle at a time.
Most pilots stay off the rudder during refueling.
The boomer clears him in. After Lead tops off, he disconnects and slowly reduces his power to drop back behind the tanker. As he does so, the wingmen leave the tanker and rejoin on the Lead. With the flight now back in the desired formation order, the Lead descends and turns away from the tanker's heading. Once clear of the tanker block, the leader sends the flight back to Cricket for more tasking info.