A Nice "surprise" - my first time with sophisticated HW for simming...

[jcomm 5,882]

Well, not counting TrackIR 5, which was really one of the best peripherals I ever acquired for flight simulation...

 

Yesterady I receive from ELITE Switzerland two hardware modules I purchased with the reduced prices from their Summer Campaign.

 

Of course my dream would have been the ELITE Yoke and Rudder pedals ( properly force-feedbacked... for an ultimate experience in controlloing both the aircraft modules in ELITE but also PSX and even X-plane add-on aircraft ) but that would be way too much for my budget so, I ordered only the MEL throttle quadrant and the GNS 530 hardware unit.

 

The MEL quadrant is a sturdy unit. Again I would prefer to opt for their B200 TQ, but it costs an additional €200, and with the MEL quadrant I can stil use tape to mark the beta and reverse ranges, so, not the ideal but still enough, and it works perfectly with all other aircraft modules.

 

I do not have FSX installed, and the same applies for P3D, but ELITE makes available drivers allowing to control this simulators using their hardware. For properly controlling the twins in ELITE, and specially their remarkable B200, only ELITE hardware works, the only alternative, which I had been using for year being the Insert / Delete || Home / End || PgUp / Pg Dn keyboard combinations allowing to adjust throttle, prop and mixture or condition on a single or both engines ( no asymmetric control is possible through the keyboard ).

 

But the surprise was how well a plugin, made available by simplugins: https://www.simplugins.com/  works with X-Plane 10.

 

I only installed the demo version to test how it worked, and it works for 10 ' periods. As soon as X-plane 10 starts, the Throttle Quadrant and the GPS unit have total control over the corresponding units in your X-plane aircraft, and it feels just great to be able to finely adjust power through the MEL TQ, and interact with the various GNS 430 and 530 functions through the ELITE GNS 530 hardware module.

 

This was my first really "expensive" acquisition for flight simulation. My joystick is still a ( wonderful ) T16000, and the rudder a Saitek Combat Pro.

 

Just regret not being able to control PSX through it ... the throttles... Maybe one day we can come up with some connector for that :-)

[Jude Bradley 659]

Nice one Jose, expensive hobby.

[jcomm 5,882]

Sure it is :-)

 

Thx Jude !

[ErichB 3,637]

Yup.  High quality hardware is probably the single biggest improvement you can make to your simming experience other than the screen.

 

I can never understand people throwing thousands at their simming setups  - massive 4k screen, avionics sets, overheads, thousands of dollars worth of software......and a Saitek yoke.  Flying an aircraft in a sim with a high quality yoke becomes a completely different experience.

[jcomm 5,882]

Erich,

 

at another thread you mentioned using a high quality yoke. Can you give me a link to the product page ?

 

How well did it integrate with your flight simulators ? For instance, how is "dynamic pressure" based feedback passed to the controller in MSFS or X-Plane ?

 

For use with simulators without force-feedback, does it have any kind of configuration / setup interface where you can at least approximately set some mapping between

pitch stiffness and "g" or dynamic pressure ?

[ErichB 3,637]

Erich,

 

at another thread you mentioned using a high quality yoke. Can you give me a link to the product page ?

 

How well did it integrate with your flight simulators ? For instance, how is "dynamic pressure" based feedback passed to the controller in MSFS or X-Plane ?

 

For use with simulators without force-feedback, does it have any kind of configuration / setup interface where you can at least approximately set some mapping between

pitch stiffness and "g" or dynamic pressure ?

I use the PFC Beech yoke with Hall Sensors and also managed to save enough to get the PFC throttle quadrant. It is an amazing yoke for flightsimming. No force feedback, but the yoke is solid.. Flying the A2A Piper Cherokee with this yoke in the sim feels almost exactly the same as flying the real one. It's just a much better experience alround. The low resistance and flimsiness of the Saitek yoke is really an immersion killer. Not to mention the rapid spring centering

 

For me there was no need to fuss overly with settings. I assigned axes and calibration in FSUIPC as necessary - job done.

[jcomm 5,882]

Thx Erich!

[MarkDH 234]

Of course my dream would have been the ELITE Yoke and Rudder pedals

Where do you live? I am selling a low-hours Elite yoke. Not sure how much it would cost to ship internationally, though. I am in the UK. (The Elite yoke doesn't have force feedback, of course.)

[jcomm 5,882]

I'm in Portugal Mark, so, at least for now, there should be no charges but the necessary shipping charges...

 

May I ask why you're selling it ? And of course, how much you're asking for it ...

 

Is it the full console?

[MarkDH 234]

May I ask why you're selling it ? And of course, how much you're asking for it ...

Is it the full console?

 

Ha, all important questions! It's not a console, just the yoke. I am selling it because I have (had) more yokes than I really need. I was very happy with the Elite but eventually (two years late) the Iris Dragonfly turned up. And then Virtual Fly sent me a Yoko for free in return for making a review video. I only really need one yoke and at the end of the day I chose the Yoko.

 

I had hoped to get £300 for it, which is about half the purchase price (although you can't buy them now). Shipping to Portugal would be £38.40 by UPS Standard uninsured - insurance for the full value would cost a further £12.50.

[jcomm 5,882]

Thx Mark, I'll PM you.

[ErichB 3,637]

 

 

Thx Mark, I'll PM you.

 

You will love it.