Upgrade Joystick To Yoke & Pedals?

[Guest Gander]

I'm a relative noobie, but I'm considering upgrading my "Logitech Force 3-D Pro" joystick to a yoke and pedals. I fly prop planes of the '30's and '40's -- especially DC-3 variants and a MK-1 Spitfire and the Boeing 314 ("Clipper") flying boat. I've ordered a Dell XPS 730X (2.93 GHz with 8 MB cache) to upgrade the computer used. I expect I'll stick with FS9 at least for a few more years.Question 1. I love the force-feedback feature of my joystick. Do any of the yokes have this -- or do experienced simmers not miss it when they no longer have it? For me, the absence of vibration from wheels or hull at the moment of takeoff is an enjoyable bit of realism. Question 2. The CH-vs-Saitek decision. If I'm willing to spend up to $300 for a yoke-and-pedals setup, what do experienced simmers suggest as the best choice for the airplanes and computer specified above? (My reading so far makes it seem the choice boils down to CH or Saitek -- but do people have other suggestions than those two in the under-$300 range?)Thanks a million!

[dbrucem 0]

In the price range you specify the CH and Saitek controllers are pretty much it. I have used the CH rudder pedals and throttle quadrant along with my ancient Sidewinder FFB joystick. A while back I bought the CH Flight yoke but found I missed the FFB and returned to the Sidewinder joystick. I do not use the default FFB in FS9 / FSX but have used an addon FFB program called FS-Force which in my experience greatly enhances my simulated flight experience. There are not any commercially aavailable FFB yokes and there appears to be little interest in the flight sim community. I recently modified the CH yoke and added FFB to it. Check out my post, "DIY Force Feedback Yoke", which has ended up on page 6 of the new MOBOARD section. The image links don't appear to work anymore and I have emailed the forum moderator. Back to the CH vs Saitek question, i would recommend reading the many reviews out there. Cost will be about equal. The Saitek yoke has a metal yoke tube with ball bearings while the CH yoke is all plastic. The CH pedals and throttle quad have performed very well for me. The Saitek throttle levers are physically larger and may have a more realistic feel to them. Hope this helps, good luck.

[Art_P 6]

Pedals would be the most valued improvement, whether using the yoke or joystick. If I had to do without either the yoke or joystick, I'd eliminate the yoke. As stated many times, the original CH yoke is sticky on the pitch axis, which caused me at one time to go back to the joystick until I could modify it to make it usable. The Saitek yoke and throttle quadrant is a better choice as long as you don't have a keyboard tray interfering with the clamping device.

[Guest Gander]

Thanks, both, for the helpful info -- I really appreciate it! This forum has the most generous bunch of contributers anyone starting out could hope for!

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Having used both the CH and Saitek Products, I can safely say that the yokes are about par with each other. The biggest detractor for me on the Saitek is that it has centering detentes and they are kind of substantial, so it's not as smooth when moving through them. Having said that though, I'm still using it as I like the features of it. The POV hat is on the left side along with the trim switch rather than on the right like on the CH, so I can actually use the POV hat on landings and keep my right hand on the throttle.The throttle quadrant is also much more realistic in terms of feel and movement to most of the piston planes you would fly. It's also separate from the yoke so you can mount it where you want it. I also bought a second throttle unit to have multi-engine control. The unit that comes with the yoke plugs into the yoke via what looks like a PS/2 jack while the add-on quadrant is USB. The yoke happens to have three USB ports on it to plug in your pedals and quadrants and saves you from buying a hub. It's also possible to set up reversers/feathering/etc. Pulling the levers back, there's a detent for 0 and pulling beyond that pushes down a button that can be set for your reversers. Unless you have FSUIPC, though, you can't set it for individual engines (FS doesn't given an option for individual engines, but the registered FSUIPC does). Each quadrant also has 6 press buttons below the levers. If you buy the separate quadrant, it comes with extra heads for the levers to set them up as you want. 3 throttle, 2 mixture, 2 prop, and a wide throttle lever that links four levers at a time. The quadrant with the yoke just has one throttle, one mixture, and one prop lever head, so with the two, you can run a 4 engine jet or a twin-engine prop aircraft.The clock/stopclock feature is nice, though it seems you cannot sync the clock to FS. It only displays your Windows System time. It's not a problem if you always fly in real time. In any case the stopwatch gets a bit of use by me in IFR flight in light aircraftAs for rudders, the Saitek and the CH really have little difference other than the selectable torsion on the Saitek offering. I do feel that the Saitek's brake pedals don't quite have the same range of motion as the CH. I still have my CH yoke though and could see trying to use it as a secondary yoke someday.If you do go with CH, one thing to watch out for on the pedals is wires to the brakes fraying apart as they rub through the groove meant to keep them out of the rudder pedal tracks. I don't know if they've fixed this, but I spliced mine about 3 times and it was my running out of length to splice with that made me can them finally. I couldn't track down the connectors for the wire ends to replace them and CH only offered to fix them for $50 plus shipping and handling. I figured it'd be better to just spend $120 on a new set than $70 to repair a 7 year old set.

[Arklight1 140]

Pedals would be the most valued improvement, whether using the yoke or joystick. If I had to do without either the yoke or joystick, I'd eliminate the yoke. As stated many times, the original CH yoke is sticky on the pitch axis, which caused me at one time to go back to the joystick until I could modify it to make it usable. The Saitek yoke and throttle quadrant is a better choice as long as you don't have a keyboard tray interfering with the clamping device.

The new CH Eclipse, I believe, does not have the sticky pitch axis issue.Was it the Saitek that had the ghost landing gear issue? If so, has this been fixed?

[Guest Gander]

Many thanks for the additional comments: great info and very helpful! You're most appreciated!

[tanker 15]

The new CH Eclipse, I believe, does not have the sticky pitch axis issue.Was it the Saitek that had the ghost landing gear issue? If so, has this been fixed?

I just purchased the CH Eclipse yoke - it had the sticky pitch axis and was bad enough I am going to return it.Dale

[Guest Chairborne]

Was it the Saitek that had the ghost landing gear issue? If so, has this been fixed?

Hi, Arklight; It was indeed the Saitek yoke that had what's been commonly referred to as the 'phantom button press' issue, and there've been many methods used to combat it. The one method I used with success was to not install the CD-ROM software. It's really not at all necessary as the drivers for the yoke are built into the hardware and the yoke installs itself. Once installed, you just need to go into the FS settings and configure the buttons. One year later with much use and occasional abuse, I still love my Saitek!