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dmaher
October 26th, 2010, 13:19
I’m wondering, how do you account for different controllers in flight modeling?
For instance the CH yoke has about 12” of travel left bank stop to right bank stop.
With the yoke it’s very easy to make subtle adjustments with a light touch.

While the Logitech WingMan has only 6” of travel stop to stop.
The joystick makes most inputs ham-handed.
Worse, it’s far too easy to input full deflection on the stick…potentially disastrous over maneuvering speed.

I tuned my aircraft on the CH yoke.
While the control authority is a little high…it’s not far from what I want.
However with a joystick it flies like an RC model :)
By reducing the joystick sensitivity to 1 I can get a reasonable result.
But I don’t want to ask users to use special controller settings for just this aircraft.

My solution will likely be a compromise…somewhere between yoke and stick…but ideal for neither.
So, what controller do you use to design the flight model?
Am I over thinking this or missing something?

Danny

Milton Shupe
October 28th, 2010, 19:35
Danny,

A problem well explained.

I use a yoke but understand your dilemna.

I would suggest using the yoke to tune.

Then do a separate aircraft .cfg file for joystick users and use the flight tuning parameters to "de-tune". May be the simplest way around the problem and satisfy both needs. Just document what you have for whom in the documentation.

dmaher
October 29th, 2010, 19:02
Thanks Milton, That’s an excellent idea…very practical.
I think it wouldn’t take very long either :)

BTW, after doing some searching I did find this post by Rob Young that touches on the topic.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/56526-plane-design-spitfire-vs-realair-spitfire/page__p__424185#entry424185

I’d agree the vast majority of joysticks really aren't suited for mechanical type flight controls.
It's too bad they're so common ;)

Danny