Joystick Pitch Realism in Flight Simulator

[Guest]

The writer is a pre-VietNam Navy Pilot with instrument ratings in both Multi-Engine/Single Engine fixed wing and helo craft so I have a decent idea how stick forces feel in various aircraft. In MS Flight Simulator I do not sense this same feel of stick forces when changing configuration. For example, when you are in straight and level flight everything trimmed and you make a turn, ascend or decend the simple interia of the aircraft tends to continue the craft in the same direction and resists the change by a substantial stick force which has to be overcome by trimming. (Citations to Newton's Laws) You surely could not hold the stick with these forces for any time without having to trim them away.In FS one can jerk the stick around and the nose jerks around with it abruptly up and down. You could not do this in the real aircraft without encountering stick resistance. FS in this limited regard is more like a point-and-fly computer flight game. I could be wrong. Maybe it is a question of settings in the MS Force Feedback 2 Joystick or in an .air file. But in "As real as it gets" I would think that shoving the stick around you should get a corresponding resistance in the stick that needs trimming.Awaiting to be educated in FS Sim World (as opposed to real world).

[Guest RichD]

You can give this a try. Add this line under the Controls section of your FS9.cfg file.stick_sensitivity_mode=0 You might need to reset your sensitivity settings in the sim higher after your make the change. Richard

[Guest]

Your post was appreciated but the cfg setting did not produce the effect of a resisting stick force. Anyone with another thought?

[Guest Bilbo]

I think that I understand what you are saying but I don't have a force feedback stick. I believe that you are experiencing what it would feel like as if you are sitting on the ground. If you pull back the stick it is too easy. As you get the aircraft moving, it should take more effort to make a change in the elevators. What I dn't know is how you adjust the force feedback settings and the amount of force. This may not be correct on your stick or it's not setup properly scince this is the main reason to have that joystick. Perhaps a FFB user can better inform you.Bilbo BTW:If you made that change to the FS9.cfg and it's not what you wan't, I would remember to change this back. It only modifys the range of sensitivity of your stick. This is also somewhat adjustable in the sim's joystick sensitivity settings.

[Guest]

Comments appreciated. Yes, the force feedback is of no effect to give stick resistance. Worse yet you can postion the stick for level flight and leave it there as though the aircraft were trimmed. As for a large multi-engine craft any attempt in a real aircraft to push it over would be met with a huge resistance. Do you folks that fly the sim jumbos think that reality is served by the ability to push a jumbo into a dive with no stick resistance?if there is no setting I guess I will have to live with it. Anyone have a clue?

[Guest sj3]

Pocamadre: Within the past 2 or 3 weeks, someone posted some suggested modifications either to the config or air file(s). An advanced search (subject only) for ff2 or feedback should find it for you. Don't use "force" as that will also find all the hoopla surrounding geForce graphics cards, which will only hide the stuff you want to find! Good luck. Please understand, though, that the default install of fs9 needs to be a little forgiving here. That's becuase we've got little kids out there that need to be able to dive a jumbo jet and not be attacked by their stick or require mucho weight training! This is something that I think should be connected to the Realism settings but I don't think is. I really think the other post has exactly what you need; I'm sorry I can't point you right to it.sj

[Guest hoohah]

I don't have a Force Feedback device, but I would be suprised there was the level of sophistication that you are talking about...maybe someday. Heck, you might be the one to figure out how to do it; but I think it has to be done for a specific aircraft, and FS might not let you do it at all anyway...With a regular self-centering flightstick you have to get used to trimming so that the plane is in the attitude you want with the stick centered - it's backwards, I know, but it's the real-sim-world.

[Guest tascaso]

Poca,Glad to see your input...I come from the world of GA and fly around in a Piper Cherokee...it handles like a truck. Very resistant to stick input...FS on the other hand has always been super-sensitive and one can deaden the inputs to the point where you loose all authority over pitch command.Now some Addons such as PIC767 were able to capture the feel of flying something weighting over 500,000 pounds. They did a superb job in my opinion! I continue to use it as it is still at the top although old by software standards.I do not think that FS9 will be as amenable to super detailed flight models as it appears some parameters have been removed or blocked from being tweaked by outside developers. Time will tell. But yes face it the overall feel is nothing but squirrely to say the least. I have not tried Force Feedback that would be interesting if it were emulated correctly.Good luck happy flyingTony

[Guest Ray CYYZ]

I've got a Force Feedback 2 and some planes do it rather well giving you a good fight but others are so far off that I end up disabling the feedback stuff and just crank the external settings up to maximum force to resist movement.FS9 does not seem to be great yet, but there are a lot of things in FS9 which were obviously rushed out the door, even down to the glaring bug in the menu panel. Apart from the visual improvements that make you not want to go back to FS2002, I'd rate the FS9 BELOW FS2000 in terms of problems out of the box and we all know how happy folks were with it.Shame on Microsoft for releasing an obvious pre-Beta product! Lets hope the airfile guys can at least come up with some real aircraft for us instead of the car with wings that shipped.

[Guest hoohah]

I think FS9 is a cross between a patch and a new version: 1) A patch that was 6 months too late. 2) A new version that is 6 months too early.That being said, I'm enjoying FS9 much more than I enjoyed FS8.

[Guest Ray CYYZ]

No arguement there, the visual differences are staggering, but I sure hope *this* one gets a patch instead of a FS2006 as a fix ...

[michal 44]

Poca,Your problem is that you are probably trying to fly default Miscrosoft planes. They are unflyable ! I fully agree about your comments and Peter Sidoli (a professional pilot who frequents this forum) often louds about very poor pitch characteristics in FS.Get some custom-made, most likely payware, add-on aircraft and enjoy much more realistic flight behavior. Someone mentioned 767PIC - excellent choice bt I am not sure you can use it inside FS9. There is also a brand new 737NG by PMDG. Also on the subject of force feedback sticks - general consesus is they are not adding any realism to your FS flying experience. Many even claim they make it worse. I never used FF so can't say.I don't think it is an easy job to fix those air files to getbetter results without damaging other parts. I leave air file modifications to the pros ... ;)Good luck.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

[Guest cw1011]

I think this is really a flight model issue. There is a terrific Convair Turboprop (580?) out there that does a good job of modelling this. It is very resistant to stick inputs - start rolling left or right and the plane very reluctantly starts to wing over. The intertia of tons of metal hurtling through the air seems much better modeled. Just a suggestion. Colin

[Guest Bigshot]

You gotta do some work to get the right feel with the MSFFB2 stick. Most aircraft are released by designers who've done an excellent job; but obviously didn't have a FFB stick to work with. Search for good airfiles. There's lots of them in the FS2k2 stuff. They work great in FS2k4 aircraft and if you get the right one, they're right on the money flight wise and with some tweaking to the aircraft config files flighttuning section and MOI values, you can end up with an awesome aircraft that feels great and flies great with a FFB stick.Just as an example, my Posky CRJ now flies great and if I don't trim it properly, I'll end up working up a sweat after a while. Same with the new Firefox release. Same with the 737s I use and many other aircraft. Sometimes, I just give up and throw the whole thing out; but usually, I can get the aircraft to feel just great with my MSSWFFB stick. Then I have a great flying and great looking aircraft for at least a year or so. Well worth the effort. I couldn't imagine flying without the forces in effect. I want to know what the aircraft is doing and why just by feeling it. This requires a FFB stick. I don't think I have an aircraft that doesn't require trim with changes in speed, altitude, turns, takeoff or landings unless I want to fight the stick all the way through the procedure. I want a stick that when I begin a turn, I can return the stick to center and let go of it and maintain that turn. That's what I got. But, like I said, they take some work and sometimes hours of tweaking with each individual aircraft to get em' just right. Many more successes than failures. I just gotta learn how to tweak the FFB forces in the airfiles so I don't have to go fishing everytime.

[Guest BP]

I agree with you. The stick-n-rudder in FS(any version) has always been way to sensitive and far from real life. FS seems to have all axis' set to a linear profile. I got around this by curving all the axis' via my eqmt software, Thrustmast Cougar HOTAS and Foxy II cougar software. I also dropped the senstivity and upped the null zones in FS9. That elliminated the point and fly scenerio which drove me nuts. BPAleinware 2.8g 2.g RamRadeon 9700 proDual NEC'sSB Audigy PlatinumKlipsch Pro media 5.1TM Cougar/RCS