Flight Yoke (now with flight sim reviews)

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Flying in MS Flight Sim again had me missing my old inland flight yoke.

I guess lots of people must be getting back into flight sim because yokes and flight sticks are sold out just about everywhere.

Microcenter had one of the more expensive ones still in stock so I went and got it, going to use my MS sidewinder stick for throttle and extra buttons.  Microcenter had some throttles in stock but they were $90 and I went way over budget on the yoke, so the slider on the joystick will be fine.

The yoke I got is the Honeycomb Alpha Flight Controls:



Of the first bunch of web pages I ever made one of them was instructions on how to remove the centering springs from the inland yoke because they were way too strong.  This yoke has springs but they are not that strong near the middle and only get strong as you move to the yoke a lot, so similar resistance to the yoke in a plane.

Here's that web page from 1997:  https://science.widener.edu/~schultz/yoke.html

[Variety of Cells]

Nice!  I spent some time last night planning on how to set up my old flight stick, throttle and pedals with my new desk. (Oh yeah, I bought the game. Never going to have more time to fly planes than right now.) I had drilled some metal brackets into the bottom of my old desk and made some mounts that I could easily install and removed for my throttle and stick, but that won't work with my new desk. Fortunately it looks like I'll be able to just spring clamp the mounts to my keyboard tray. Hopefully that works.

I couldn't think of a better idea for my pedals though. They suffer from the rolling chair issue, where as I push on them my chair rolls back. Plus they don't have anything solid to push against and they twist. So I'm going to use my old rig that involves using some gear from work to clamp the pedals to the chair with a metal rod. Should do the trick. It's just kind of cumbersome and time consuming to remove.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Since all flight sim stuff is rapidly going out of stock I broke down and did get the Thrustmaster throttle.

It has so many buttons and hat switches on it that I don't regret spending the money on it, after about half an hour setting up all the new controls it does make flying much nicer.

Maybe when pedals come back in stock I'll add them, that might not be until October...

So this is my flying setup now:

[Variety of Cells]

The pedals are nice for long distances, as you can do slight course corrections with your feet and have your hands completely free.

I'll post my setup when I set it up again next, as I have to remove it for VR.

[Darth Geek]

He he he, Thrustmaster.

[Variety of Cells]

Hey MartyS, have you looked into FSeconomy?  It adds a persistent economy where players have money, can own or rent planes, and take jobs moving cargo or passengers to earn money. Which can be then used to purchase planes. Sounds like it's less about amassing money and 'winning', and more of a role playing tool to give you a reason for why you're flying from point A to point B.

I'm tempted to try, but it doesn't have the most advanced user interface, and there would be a learning curve to get going. We'll see. Need some more flights under my belt first.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I had not heard of that before, looking through the user guide on the website I don't think it's for me.  Seems too much like real work...

Navigation in MSFS2020 is a mess right now, I have yet to see ILS work properly, the Garmin1000 is only partially implimented so you can't set a flight plan with several waypoints.  I'm thinking about buying X plane 11 just to get back into setting up proper approaches and stuff.

[Variety of Cells]

I had not heard of that before, looking through the user guide on the website I don't think it's for me.  Seems too much like real work...

Navigation in MSFS2020 is a mess right now, I have yet to see ILS work properly, the Garmin1000 is only partially implimented so you can't set a flight plan with several waypoints.  I'm thinking about buying X plane 11 just to get back into setting up proper approaches and stuff.

That's understandable.  I'm not familiar enough to know when things are not working or implemented, so it hasn't bothered me.  I recently played a game called Death Stranding which was all about moving cargo from one point to another and taking on jobs that make the most efficient use of your cargo space and the route you're going to take.  It was a lot of fun for me, but it also doesn't resemble my job at all, so I can see how it'd be considered work for others.  FSeconomy sounds a lot like that.  I've signed up for it.  We'll see if I stick with it.

Oh, and this is my current setup.  The only issue is that with the pedals my knees don't fit under the keyboard tray, which makes it moderately uncomfortable because I have to sit up.  Not the end of the world.  My chair doesn't go any lower, so I don't know how to fix it.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Well, you should be sitting up all the time anyway while flying. 

My back will hurt later if I start to slide down in my chair and stay like that too long, so I'm always trying to remember to sit with my back in the back of the chair.  The knobs that clamp the flight yoke to my keyboard shelf will hit my knees if I start to slouch, so that actually helps my back.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Been really itching to fly some of the planes I flew in FSX, most of them have nice freeware versions for Xplane except I don't see a good model of the Spirit Of St. Louis.  So I may end up buying the steam version of FSX at some point, but I think I'll start with X-Plane, really feel like flying the DC-3 again and the original J3 Cub, also learning on a better simulation of the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit would be nice.

That should hold me over until FS2020 gets some patches, supposed to be the first big patch within the next week.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Got the base version of X-Plane from Steam yesterday, downloaded several free vintage aircraft for it.

The Aeroworx DC3 is amazing, took me 5 minutes to figure out how to start the engines....

The others do not have photo realistic cockpits, but it's still nice to fly them.  There are payware versions that look better but it would be cheaper for me to buy the steam version of FSX that has the few I want to fly.

Spent 5 hours flying the DC3, had an idea to do a trip from Boston Mass to Normandy France.  Landed and refueled just before the long strech to Greenland, but while avoiding some terrain near the approach to BGBW I got distracted and forgot to put the landing gear down.  The retracted gear on the DC3 prevents a belly landing so I still landed on tires, but the props were gone and other damage.  5 hours with time accelleration at max to go about 1/3 of the trip, so I wasn't going to stick with the plan to head to Iceland and Ireland and then France.  My dead reckoning was pretty good, crossing the ocean to Greenland I ended up only about 15 miles south of the beacon when I got within range of the coast.

Comparing X-plane 11 to MSFS2020:  MSFS looks much prettier, with mostly correct roads and buildings all over the world.  The world in X-plane is only marginally a step up from MSFSX.  World map in MSFS is nice, in X-plane you only set up your starting location and you have to know the name of the airport to search for it.  Aircraft realism is about the same between them.  Navigating by beacons and ILS approaches is correct in X-plane, half broken in MSFS, as well as the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit not fully implemented in MSFS but fairly well done in X-plane.

There is freeware and payware scenery for X-plane, but you'd be spending days downloading and installing, and it all has to be on your hard drive so hundreds of gigs of data, just to get close to MSFS with it's streaming high res scenery.

[Variety of Cells]

Cool, thanks for the write-up.  Sounds like I'll be sticking with MSFS and its hopefully temporary wonkiness.  The stat tracking is buggy in it too.  But I'm still having some fun.  I'm excited to try FSeconomy, but signing up for the services isn't automated.  Someone has to manually sign you up for it once you make a request, and with the release of MSFS they are super backed up.  Hopefully, in the next couple of days, I'll be able to try it out. 

Do you have an actual Pilot's license MartyS? 

I went through the whole startup checklist for the first time on a Cessna.  It was cool, might try it again sometime, but it's not something I'll be doing every time.  I do like how it highlights what you are supposed to interact with for you, if you're just learning the ropes. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Do you have an actual Pilot's license MartyS? 

I went through the whole startup checklist for the first time on a Cessna.  It was cool, might try it again sometime, but it's not something I'll be doing every time.  I do like how it highlights what you are supposed to interact with for you, if you're just learning the ropes.

Nope, before my uncle got cancer and had to quit he almost had his, he had gotten his student certificate and had soloed a couple of times.  If I had more money I would have gone for mine, but by the time you are done it costs something like $10K, and then it costs quite a bit to rent or lease a plane.

I have used all versions of MSFS (and Sublogic before MS bought them).  Along with some of the other sims, there was a great one called Fly! that was the first to have 3D cockpits with working switches.

The checklist is a cool feature of MSFS, I've heard the ATC isn't quite right but with the checklists and ATC you can get the feel of what it's like to get in a parked plane and take off properly.  I don't bother with ATC but I do always start with the plane off and parked.

[Variety of Cells]

I haven't quite dove into the ATC yet. I have the co pilot take care of most of that. But I'm listening to try and learn what it's saying and why. Still get confused more often than not. Finally figured out that they aren't telling me what altitude to fly at, but that the altimeter needs to be adjusted depending on where you are.

The checklist is cool, but it takes quite a long time. I tried to do it on my own the first time, and I fucked it up somehow and couldn't get the engine to start. Kept getting a flashing low oil and a warning indicator. Had to do the guided version and got through it.  Once I settle in a plane I enjoy the most perhaps I'll take more time to learn its start up procedure better.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Yeah, it's not like starting a car...  Complicated electrical and fuel systems.  While flying over to Greenland in the DC3 I had to switch fuel tanks, there are 4 tanks and each engine can be set to draw fuel from any of them but to keep the plane balanced you have each one take from one on it's side.  So cool that the sims are detailed enough that they respond to changes in payload.

When I used to go to a lot of used book stores I always looked for plane stuff, picked up a couple of instruction books for different planes over the years, so I know the stuff to look for to get a plane started, just a matter of finding where they put some of the valves and switches.

It seems it was FS2004 that had the Spirit of St. Louis, so I guess I won't bother with FSX from steam after all.