I'm finally getting back into flight sims after about six years away. Sadly, I don't quite have the massive selection of input devices most around here have, and as such am limited to a single joystick.

 

After some creative rebinding of the keys, I think I've managed to get things working out, however, I do have a few issues - namely the rudder and throttle settings.

 

I currently have a Logitech Attack 3 joystick, which only has an X and Y axis for the stick, plus a throttle lever at the base. My main issue is that the rudder when I press the keys on my joystick (#4 and #5 keys respectively at the top of the stick for left and right respectively), it's as if I am trimming the rudder I believe. The rudder does not auto-center when the keys are released and I have to manually realign things. I figure I can solve this by double-mapping the Y axis, but of course with a modifier in order to keep the roll and yaw commands from being initiated simultaneously. Sadly, I have not figured out how to do so - does FSX support what I want to do with the axis? And if not...how/where can I get a solution?

 

Oh, and in a semi-related note, the Z-axis is fickle at best here. I've recalibrated numerous times to no effect, and toyed with sensitivities, but the throttle does not increment gradually - it's all or nothing. Likewise, once I 'set' the throttle lever, I cannot pull it back.

 

I'm thinking it's an issue with how the stick interacts with FSX, but I'm at a loss as to a solution since when I used this same joystick in FS2004, I didn't have a problem. Nor is this an issue with MS Flight, and flying in other games (Arma2 namely) has never been problematic for me.

I'm new to FSX and Flight, and FSX does seem to be a bit janky when it comes to control axes. For me, I am using a 360 controller until I can Jerry rig up some kind of joystick and rudder pedals, and the right stick is used for changing the viewing angle in both the cockpit and spot views. But in FSX, the view recenters when the stick returns to the neutral position, which is very irritating as you have to apply constant and even pressure on the stick to hold the view at any particular angle. After a few failed Google searches that yielded several instances of people complaining of the same issue with no resolution, I am not really inclined to try to find a workaround myself, because I will possibly get a FreeTrack setup at some point.

 

However, if you are so inclined to find solutions for your axes issues, you can try taking a look at AutoHotKey. It is a free and rather impressive little app/scripting language that can let you do quite a bit with joystick inputs. You MIGHT be able to make a small script that lets the Y axis act as a third and seperate axis when a modifier key is held, but I can't promise you that for sure. There are certain limitations.

 

Edit: I believe AutoHotKey can definitely solve your z-axis problem. You can get AHK to make it so certain positions on your Z-axis will input specific keyboard commands, which can then be assigned to the various throttle commands in FSX: i.e. the lowest value of the z-axis is cut throttle, the highest is full throttle, and increase/decrease and quickly increase/quickly decrease fall at certain other positions. I think AHK may let you use percentages for ease, though you might have to specify the actual number, and you can get that by using the joystick script that shows you the number in real time of where the axis is currently positioned.

 

JoyToKey is a much more simple program that would let you map the two joystick buttons to keyboard keys, though it's probable that FSX would interpret them the same way as the joystick buttons. You could perhaps make it so that when both buttons are held, a "return rudder to center" command is applied in FSX, though I'm not sure such a command exists. If it does, you can use JoyToKey to set a key to be input when both buttons are pressed, and then assign that key to the return rudder to center command in FSX.

 

Good luck.

 

Edit: Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a center rudder command in FSX.

http://www.autohotkey.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=88118

 

This might help.

Another thing I found is FSUIPC (http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html). Not sure what the licensed version has that the free one does not, but it might do what you're wanting.