I'm not sure how appropriate it is to post this, but I feel an obligation to my fellow simmers who have helped me so much in the past. Basically I'd just like to say that if you feel like you just can't wait to get away from that plastic CH Products yoke you've had for a few years and you're considering buying the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System that you might want to hold off a couple of weeks until they get the bugs out.I got mine from Amazon.com two nights ago and it is a sweet unit. Very hefty and much more realistic feeling than my CH Products Yoke. However, it appears to be very buggy. It's taken me over 5 hours to get it to fly reasonably well, as there is a lot of phantom crossover commands coming from some of the switches, especially if you program some of them for view changes.Out of the box it loaded up with the rudder full right for some reason, even though autorudder was set, and I didn't pick up on it right away, so I ended up in the woods next to the airport very fast a few times without a clue as to what happened. Then, when turning the yoke past 1/8th of a turn or so, the view suddenly changed, cycling through cockpit, VC, Tower, and Spot views at random short intervals, blowing the landing on my first real (1/2 hour long) test flight. At one point the unit was sending the command to turning my planes in the opposite direction that I was turning the wheel, and nothing I did would fix it. At that point I just did another uninstall and reinstall and started over again entirely from scratch. In spite of doing that, however, and the other debugging and tweaking that I've tried, I'm still having these issues, albeit seemingly less frequently -- and I am getting faster at managing them. All of these problems are obviously happening concurrently and quite randomly. I called tech support today a couple of times and the unit is so new the people there are clueless about it. They ended up asking me about my USB versions and that I email them my msinfo.32 file, but I suspect the issue is most likely a driver one, or (worst case scenario) a bad circuitry design between the switches and the yoke itself, which would require we early buyers return the whole thing for the dreaded "Repair or Replacement". In any event I'm keeping my CH Yoke close by, just in case.I know it's not just me, my FS9 or my system because there's already a thread about these same issues posted on their discussion forum -- a thread which includes people pleading for help from tech support and not getting any satisfaction up to this point (hence my decision to place a phone call instead of emailing them).<< http://www.saitekforum.com/showthread.php?...light=view+yoke >>I'm sure Saitek will soon iron these issues out, and this IS by far the earliest in a product life cycle I've ever bought a piece of hardware like this, so I guess I'm not surpirsed there are problems, but I am nonetheless disappointed. We'll see how Saitek and/or Tech Support treats me. For now, I just wanted to let you all know that you may want to hold off jumping onto the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System bandwagon too soon, and give them some time to work this out. Just my experience and two cents.

Hi Chuck, thanks for taken your time too let us know how things are going with the new yoke I hope Saitek can fix this issue asap hopefully its a software error.

ChuckAre you running thier SST software? If so try disabling it and assigning and calibration in FS9 (or FSUIPC if you have it). I don't have the yoke but had some issues with the rudder pedals until I disabled the SST software and reclibrated in WINXP.RegardsPeterH

Hi, Peter:Yeah, that was one of the first things I did -- I had an X52 joystick and I'm already familiar with the shorrcomings of the SST software. I wish it was that easy.I was really looking forward to a viable alternative to the CH yoke. Seems like we'll have to wait just a little longer.

Chuck, thanks for your report. I ordered the yoke and an additional TQ a few weeks ago but so far got nothing from Simware. They state on their web site that due to the limited supplies from Saitek they serve on a first come first served basis. Maybe Saitek stopped shipping the product due to all these reports of bad yoke behaviour we're hearing? I've used the X45 for years now (airbus and small stuff flying) without problems, so it is a bit disappointing to hear about all these issues with the new yoke. My CH yoke is going south rapidly and I NEED a good Saitek yoke, LOL. C'mon Saitek! :)Regards,Jure

HelloAs this is a newly released product it will not have any info in Devices.Cfg, so FS9 cannot autodetect and set the correct assignments.Delete your FS9.cfg then plug in the yoke and run FS9then set your control assignments up in the settings/assignments dialogI used to have a similar problem at times when switching between my CH yoke and the Saitek EVO force

Same yoke, no issues.Make sure you have no button assignments to buttons 9,10 and 11. Those appear to be always on. That is the little rocker switch on the back of your right hand. Once I deleted key assignments from those slots I have been stellar. Fixed a few people on the Aerosoft Forums as well. I have done ~ 40 hours of flying with this yoke now without a single issue other than you need the SST software which I never installed for the clock on the yoke to work. Other than that I have been loving it and continuing to get used to it. The "feel" is much heavier which is ideal for a heavy iron flier like myself...Just another opinion,Good luck with yours,-Paul

That is a great idea mad dog, and makes perfect sense. I think before I do that though, I'm going to try to fully disable the yoke in FS9 and see how Pete Dowson's FSUIPC key assigment utility handles it. I have his payware version. (If this turns out to be the best solution, I'm giong to suggest to Saitek that they include a license to FSUIPC so that their product will work with MSFS -- but that's getting ahead of myself.)I'll report back here how it all goes later today.I still think tech support should have some of these options to try. themselves. Of course, "should" is usually far from reality . . . they service many products.

Good Morning, Paul:Which switches are you refer0ring to? My yoke has 2 rockers on the right handle but those are buttons 5 - 8. My Windows XP calibration panel doesn't even list switches 9, 10, or 11, as though they don't exist -- it just jumps from Button 8 to 11. Yet the FS9 Assignments panel reported that the Gear Up/Down command was assigned to switch 10, which I immediately reassigned to switch 19, as it had been last night. But I'm not sure what this will do, as none of my issues involve faulty gear operation.In any event, if I were selling a product with switch problems I would probably either 1) tell the consumer about it in the documentation, or 2) disable them, or 3) not put them there in the first place -- Why have them there if they don't work?Thanks for the tip -- I'll let you know how it goes.

I too have one pre ordered so I'm interested in how things go.

Don't know if it will help you guys, but on my X45 using both SGE in Win 98 and SST in Win XP I get best results by programming all buttons to keyboard commands in SST, removing all joystick button commands in FS, and just using the keyboard commands with my saitek (except for view hat and of course the axis inputs). I run all axis through FSUIPC but that probably isn't mandatory, though it helps for getting reverse thrust on the throttle.scott s..

For those who haven't seen them, there are updated drivers under Windows Update. Just check the hardware section. Not sure if they will help or not, but at least I see the clock now!