GoFlight Yoke

[Steve1969 8]

Thanks for the feedback, very useful.

[Guest]

Thanks for the review Richard, much appreciated!

[RCITGuy 35]

I wouldnt call it a "review" as such, just my own "likes and dislikes"...

I looked a the PFC ones too but less controls than the GF one, for EVEN MORE money... Madness...

 

1 thing I did notice too, on the customs forms, a company has to declare the "actual value" of the item (Cost to make it, NOT retail price) and lets just say that the 20% VAT on its actual value was £53

 

Bit of a kick in the teeth with 200% markup (66% profit) on a yoke..

Was even worse on the GF-TQ6-ADV Throttle.. (79% Profit = 380% Markup)

[Zorropisa 0]

At last I found a forum where the GF Yoke is discussed!

 

I bought a GF Yoke very early and I received it in middle of July. By now I have flown perhaps 100 hours with it. Mostly on iFly 737 but also on smaller planes (Dash-8 and Do228).

 

I have also wondered why there has been no real reviews done so far. I have not seen one, anyhow. It feels very strange.

 

Good things:

 

It looks professional.

It is very sturdy. I managed to drop it from my table to the floor (it weighs almost 10 kgs). It hit my leg so I bled violently and made a deep mark in the floor. But not the slightest dent or scratch on the yoke. I could see no trace at all from the fall and everything worked afterwards. Good mechanical quality!

It has a nice feel, when flying.

 

Not so good things:

 

The mouse control on the right handle. Absolutely worthless as pointed out by others. It is almost impossible to control the mouse so you actually can maneuver a switch. It moves so fast so you always pass the spot you want to hit. And if you change speed in the mouse settings, you will also slow down the computer mouse (you can’t differentiate them) so this one will become unusable. I tried to use the mouse in the beginning, but gave up and never use it anymore.

 

According to my opinion the hat switch on the left handle should be on the right handle instead. The elevator trim switches are on the left handle, and if you are flying a 90 dgs turn on the final, almost until touch down (this is the case for some airports in northern Norway, like Honningsvaag) you need the hat switch to look to the right or left (or forward right/left) and you also might need to adjust the elevator trim at the same time. Impossible as it is now. I find it strange that the testers did not complain on this. I pointed this out in a mail to GF but never got any reaction. Maybe they were hurt by my comment.

 

When I received my yoke the left trim switch up and right trim switch down (or perhaps the opposite – I have forgotten) was soldered together by mistake, so they controlled the same Windows button. GF were very helpful and guided me by sending instructions and photos and an Allen key (In Sweden we use the Metric system) so I could fix the problem. The technician who helped me wrote that he ”saw” (perhaps in his crystal ball) a GF module on its way to me, if I fixed the problem. I spent many hours on this, but when the problem eventually was fixed, I got a gift certificate worth 100 USD, i.e. 1/3 GF module (depending on which one you want). Although they were very helpful and the technician was a very nice guy, I find this a little bit ungenerous. The shipping cost to GF and back would have been at least 200 USD, which I saved them.

 

The hat switch is very difficult to control. I agree that it should have been much bigger and have another form. I had never any problems with the hat switch on my CH yoke (which I used for at least 10 years).

 

To sum up. I like the GF Yoke in many ways. It looks nice. I find it much easier to control the planes with this yoke than with my old CH yoke. It is much more exact. The feeling is also much better. However, the elevator movement range should, as pointed out above, have been perhaps twice what it is now.

 

I do not directly regret that I bought this yoke. The reason why I did not buy a PFC yoke is very simple. They to not (as far as I know) have a hat switch. And a yoke without a hat switch is a no-no for me. Had the PFC had a hat switch, I would probably have bought one. I guess that they are better when it comes to flying (they have so many years of experience and feed back from customers).

 

Would I recommend the GF Yoke? I don’t know. Maybe a PFC yoke would be a better buy (if you can manage without a hat switch). Would I have bought a GF Yoke if I had had the opportunity to test one before? I don’t know. I am not sure.

 

Some one wrote above ”Have these guys ever tried to use their own yoke?" Considering how bad the mouse control functions in real life (theoretically it is a splendid idea) and that the elevator trim and hat switches are on the same handle, one can wonder.

 

Happy flying

 

Krister R

[RCITGuy 35]

I just read this:

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?14324-Interview-With-Tony-Varela-Of-GoFlight

 

Explains why the yoke is the way it is... The bloody marketing guy got involved with it. He who has had only a few familiarisation flights in small aircraft!

Jeeze.... It makes for some interesting reading, thats for sure, so if you own the GF-Yoke, you will find this a somewhat enlightening insight.

[Guest]

Interesting ... but sad.

[Arndt777 1]

I am an owner of the GF yoke since about three weeks. And: Overall I am satisfied with it.

 

On the downside, for me there are following issues:

 

1. It is a great idea to have a mouse button on the yoke. I managed to adjust the speed of the mouse pointer, when using this mouse button. and to set it lower than the speed of my real mouse. Nevertheless, for me the use of the mouse button is impractical, because it takes too much time to position the mouse pointer correctly over your target and then press. So unfortunately there is wasted space and functionality on the right side of the yoke right now. Maybe a small ball instead of a knob would be a much better solution to move the mouse pointer?

 

2. There are two trigger switches at the rear of the yoke (one on each side) but they are wired together, So, although there are two buttons, they can only be assigned to one function! This again is wasted functionality.

 

3. I too would have prefered more pitch movement from the yoke.

 

4. The two screw clamps for securing the yoke to a table are difficult to use. You cannot obtain enough power on the little wheels in order to really fix the yoke. This is a problem, because the pitch movement requires some force, and therefore tends to slip on the table. So you have to add own creativity to really fix the yoke.

 

Here I am very much in line with the comment of Geoff.

 

I myself don't have problems with the hat switch, which works great for me. I also don't have problems with the arrangement of the knobs and buttons, which is practical and therfore absolutely fine.

 

Why am I satisfied with the yoke overall? Because the feeling in your hands is great, when using the yoke. It is really heavy duty, not to compare with the plastic yokes of other manufacturers.The control of elevator and aileron is very precise. This is absolutely decisive for me. Therefore I bought the yoke. And therefore I don't regret.

 

But of course GoFlight should consider the detail criticism in a future revision respective release. Then it really would be an outstanding product.

 

Arndt

[nocaltom 6]

I would appreciate it.

 

Other Yokes I'm looking at are these: https://flypfc.com/?/products/yokes/

 

Cheers, Rob.

Rob, I purchased the PFC Saab yoke and I love it... It's really well built and it feels great. I live close to company so I went and picked it up. I even got to do a quick flight in a full motion simulator it was awesome. Word Not Allowed has a great review on this yoke and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a realistic yoke.

Tom

[RCITGuy 35]

Hey Tom

 

You should swing by there again and tell them to put some proper pictures of the product on their website.

For the price of their yokes, the lack of any decent product pictures is disgraceful..

 

Given the markup on these things, is it too much to ask for some decent high quality, high res photos of what your about to spend over $600 on?

 

$620 gets you 1 tiny picture and 2 other pictures that dont seem to relate to what your actually buying.. $200 for a digital timer! Seriously???

$1000+ gets you only 1 tiny picture that shows you NO detail at all...

 

Thats why I went with the GoFlight 737 yoke, as at least I could see it..

I'm glad I got the GF Yoke though, it does have a great feel to it..

[hmsdreadnought 12]

I will be visiting the go flight folks on Friday - want to try before I buy. I'll give a full report here.

 

Colin

[ASVarela 0]

This was just posted on the main page.  Hope it helps.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/page/index.html/_/reviews/hardware/goflight-gf-pro-yoke-system-r1826

 

If you have any other questions, please ask.  Sounds like there are more than a few!  

 

In short, I can address some of the items I read above.  The mouse function in the right hand was something we received a lot of positive feedback from many of our long time customers and our beta-testing really liked it as well.  It takes some time getting used to, and perhaps changing the rate of the mouse helps.  If you have a dedicated computer for flight simming, this is perfect, but I can see how this becomes problematic when wanting to switch to your regular mouse.  Some pilots have found that the stationary mouse with the tracking ball works much better.  The charge here was to do away with the conventional mouse in your cockpit environment all together and add to the overall realism of your flight.  That is our number one mission in providing top quality hardware.  

Someone above asked, whether we fly with this yoke at all.  The answer is absolutely!!!  The most experienced simmers on our team, our technicians, both 15-20 years of simulation experience under their belts, fly with this yoke daily.  I don't have the experience they do, being a "marketing guy", but I have "flown" a considerable amount on the lower, entry level plastic yokes, and now I fly solely on our yoke.  But don't take my word for it.  Between our technicians and the countless simmers and real world pilots we've met with during testing and at trade shows, the overall experience has been very well received.  Already, the yoke is on schedule to outperform the MCP-Pro, which has been a top seller.  

 

If there are any other outlets that you feel are reputable reviewers, I would be more than interested in working with them to get some more reviews completed.  So far, we have the AVSIM review posted above, and we have the PC PILOT review from issue 83 I believe.  Do get your hand on a copy of that if you can, I feel it was an honest and fair review, as is the one done by Doug Horton.  

 

I appreciate the feedback and most of all, the criticism.    

 

Happy Flying!

 

Tony Varela

GoFlight Technologies   

[Blaze 102]

Hey Tony I just repied to the comments on the AVSIM cover page.... you guys keep doing what you do but it is NICE to see you here on AVSIM,  I'd actually like to see the mouse implementation on your yoke and think it might be ill recieved by some simply from a placement standpoint. Mouse manipulators have been around for a grip but some (X52 and gamepads like Logitech G13) have them on the left hand control aparatus maybe that's the reason why some feel it akward?

[ASVarela 0]

Thanks Blaze,

 

I saw your other comments.  Thank you!  We work hard to offer superb customer service but sometimes things get crossed.  We always try to work with our customers though, to get a resolutions in place and have you all back and flying ASAP.  

 

It's a shame I didn't find this thread sooner.  I'll try to pop in more frequently.  

 

All the best,

[N1125Y 22]

.. I was waiting to see some comments before  pulling the Plastic out, and men, I'm glade I did so.

 

to summarize all the above:

 

The concept is interesting and innovative.

The Yoke is well build and constructed.

For most simeers the Hate is very essential.

incorporating mouse in the Yoke, assuming that your Rig is a dedicated one, will,eventually, increase the sense of realism     

Somebody still need to open the Case and get us review on the mechanism, & internal components.... it would be nice to put GF vs. PFC   

implementation of the concept  require some improvements

 

I, personally, see GF Yoke as a Proto-Type/ 1st generation  ... & $750 for a common Simeer, I think better wait for the 2nd generation  

 

Thanks you all

&

Happy Tnxgiving

 

Yair    

[dfreemanfso 0]

Great topic.  I have owned both the Saitek and CH yokes and didn't like either of them- couldn't hand fly with precision.  I actually went back to a joystick because its inputs and handling were more like the real thing than either of those yokes.  I am going to buy a high end yoke soon- PFC or GF.  

 

This is a major purchase and a little nerve racking.  I don't want to spend all that money and find myself in a constant left bank - Saitek - or have sticky, unresponsive inputs- CH and Saitek.  My major concern with the PFC yoke is the mounting; all of the reviews say it flies fantastic.  If  I just put in on the desk, won't I pull it off with significant back pressure.  Everything on the GF looks nice, but I'm with the rest of you; I'd like to get some feedback on how it feels.  With it's lower cost, and better mounting options, I think I'd chose the GF over the PFC; I just need to know that for the price, I'll be able to fly with precision.