Thrustmaster TPR Rudder Pedals - alternative to Crosswind?

[oemlegoem 29]

I wanted to check how big the travel range of different pedals is. Found the following information:

Travel range total from front to back:
Thrustmaster TPR   150mm
Crosswind MFG      123mm
Virtual-Fly Ruddo     ?
Brunner CLS-E        150mm

Question to the real world pilots: how big is the total travel range front-back in real planes?

[jon b 2,047]

I'd say, roughly speaking the TPR is a fairly realistic approximation of a GA or perhaps single engine military fighter in terms of travel. 

Larger multi engine jets do have a bit more travel than the TPR , but not much, maybe an extra 20%-25% id say just. Of course the use of rudders in jets is much different in heavy jets and is only really used for some nose wheel steering, crosswind de crabbing and engine out work.

As far as real world rudder surface deflection all aircraft are similar. For comparison the Cessna 152 has 23 degrees of rudder deflection at full rudder travel and a 747 has 24 degrees.The rudder force on a light aircraft is very similar to the TPR. The 747 however requires a force of around 30kg in the air to push to full rudder deflection, this would obviously not be possible to replicate in a set of unsecured simulator pedal. It would be rare though to require full defection in the air, 2 engines out near VMCA would be one extreme example.Again heavy jets tend to have rudder ratio changers or fly by wire systems that change the ratio of pedal to rudder deflection depending on airspeed,this may well be simulated in some high end aircraft such as PMDG. 

The TPR provides a very good replication of the normal rudder use in both GA and heavy jet applications in my view.

 

I'm sure the rotation of the TPR is written somewhere but I've just measured it at about 37 degrees of rotation, so again, that's very good.

 

Jon

[Rossco 23]

On 10/27/2018 at 8:30 AM, jon b said:

Ross , I’m sure you’d really like the TPR ,it’s practically an exact 1:1 scale set of real aircraft pedals in build and feel.

Hmm Jon,

Thanks for that, think you are getting me interested.

 

 

[JRBarrett 3,070]

Thanks for the reviews Ray and Jon! I’ve been using a TM Hotas Warthog joystick for several years, and it has always done an outstanding job.

I was completely unaware of the TM pedals until reading this thread. I just checked Amazon, and they had two in stock. I have an Amazon gift card in reserve that will cover most of the cost. One of the two is on the way, with delivery scheduled for this Thursday. 

Will let you know how it works in my system. My CH pedals have served me well over the years, but I have been thinking about a pedal upgrade for quite some time.

[jon b 2,047]

Congratulations Jim, I’d be really interested in your thoughts when you get them set up. Coming from an old set of CH pedals myself I’m confident you’ll find the TPR silky smooth and a massive improvement, they’re in a different league entirely.

 

[JRBarrett 3,070]

11 hours ago, jon b said:

Congratulations Jim, I’d be really interested in your thoughts when you get them set up. Coming from an old set of CH pedals myself I’m confident you’ll find the TPR silky smooth and a massive improvement, they’re in a different league entirely.

 

I shall definitely share my thoughts on the new TPR once installed. Based on my experience with the TM Warthog joystick, I’m sure I’ll find the quality to be excellent. As my CH pedals have aged, the potentiometers are becoming increasingly noisy and unpredictable. This certainly won’t be a problem with the Hall effect sensors in the TPR.

The only thing that will not be fun is removing the old CH pedals, since their cable is tightly wound and tie-wrapped into a cable bundle between my flight sim desk and the computer. I’ll just have to take my time and cut the tie wraps VERY carefully!

[JRBarrett 3,070]

The TPR pedal set arrived today! I work in the maintenance hangar of a corporate flight department, and unboxed and assembled the pedals on my toolbox during my lunch break.

Several of our pilots are well aware of my interest in flight simulation, and one in particular is himself into auto racing sims, and has quite a significant investment in computers and hardware for that hobby. He happened to walk by as I was finishing assembly of the pedals, and did a double take when he saw them. He was quite impressed by the quality of the TPR, and the realistic action - especially of the brakes. He remarked that they looked like they had come out of one of our own aircraft!

Installation was straightforward, and the driver installer also loaded current drivers and firmware for the TM Hotas Warthog joystick I already own.

My preference is to have the pedals tilted back somewhat  and setting them in that position was quick and easy.

The response in-game was everything I had hoped it would be. My old CH pedals were becoming “twitchy” with age. It was pure pleasure to taxi the default Cub precisely with rudder and differential braking without suddenly pulling to one side of the other, or having the tail lift from having the brakes come on “full” unexpectedly - and being able to apply and easily hold “just enough” rudder to counter torque on takeoff.

I will be trying the TPR over the next few days with the Aerosoft CRJ, PMDG 747-8 and Leonardo Maddog X. I’m sure the pedals will enhance the experience of flying each of them - especially when landing with a crosswind, and during the braking phase.

Now I only lack a 6-lever quadrant with Hall Effect sensors instead of potentiometers to make my flight controls upgrade complete.

[JonP01 104]

On 10/29/2018 at 5:19 AM, jon b said:

The rudder force on a light aircraft is very similar to the TPR. The 747 however requires a force of around 30kg in the air to push to full rudder deflection, this would obviously not be possible to replicate in a set of unsecured simulator pedal.

Hi Jon, I have reading your excellent contributions (and those of Ray) with great interest. I'm looking at these pedals as a possibility too (or the VKB T-Rudder which of course uses quite a different approach). I just have a couple of questions. I would be using these TPR pedals at the same sort of tension / resistance settings that you are using. My question is: at that sort of setting, are these pedals "sockable"? (sockable if you were not aware is a word used in the race sim community to describe if pedals can be comfortably used when wearing thick socks only versus shoes).

Secondly, given that the correct usage would seem to be heels on the floor for rudder and foot only raised when wanting to toe brake, where would your heels normally be sitting when only wanting to use the rudders? Would, for example, your heels be sitting somewhere on the black base or would they be sitting on the surrounding surface?

I'm also one of those people who would be putting these on carpet (and new, somewhat thick pile carpet at that). Does the underside of the base on these pedals have some sort of friction surface on them or do these pedals just really on their sheer mass and surface area to stay put (I'm obviously discounting hard mounting solutions here).

[JRBarrett 3,070]

3 minutes ago, JonP01 said:

Hi Jon, I have reading your excellent contributions (and those of Ray) with great interest. I'm looking at these pedals as a possibility too (or the VKB T-Rudder which of course uses quite a different approach). I just have a couple of questions. I would be using these TPR pedals at the same sort of tension / resistance settings that you are using. My question is: at that sort of setting, are these pedals "sockable"? (sockable if you were not aware is a word used in the race sim community to describe if pedals can be comfortably used when wearing thick socks only versus shoes).

Secondly, given that the correct usage would seem to be heels on the floor for rudder and foot only raised when wanting to toe brake, where would your heels normally be sitting when only wanting to use the rudders? Would, for example, your heels be sitting somewhere on the black base or would they be sitting on the surrounding surface?

I'm also one of those people who would be putting these on carpet (and new, somewhat thick pile carpet at that). Does the underside of the base on these pedals have some sort of friction surface on them or do these pedals just really on their sheer mass and surface area to stay put (I'm obviously discounting hard mounting solutions here).

The way the pedals are situated, your heels will be on the floor when using them, Your feet would only touch the base if you slid them under and beyond the the bottom of the pedals.

I normally wear just socks myself when in the house, and find the pedals perfectly comfortable to use this way.

The base has low profile rubber feet on the bottom in the corners.  I’m using the pedals on a tile floor, and the base has no tendency to slide or shift. I would assume it would be even more stable on a carpeted floor. It is quite heavy. In fact, my computer chair has rollers on the bottom, and I had to lock them, because the chair wanted to push back when I extended my feet to actuate the pedals or brakes - the TPR unit stayed rock solid in place!

[jon b 2,047]

Morning Jon , Jim

I think Jim has superbly covered everything there that you asked and I would concur with everything he’s said.

The TPR feels quite substantial when just wearing  socks, in a good way, and realistic when wearing shoes, the choice is yours.

I’m using 2 springs at their lowest setting, I’ve never bothered to experiment with different settings as they just felt perfect right out of the box to me. I read that on their maximum tension settings the springs provide around 5kg of resistance. Given that the TPR weighs 7.3kg I figured that’s only 2kg of gravity left to hold it in place so it might be more inclined to shift if unsecured. My unit is on carpet and I’ve not experienced any movement yet with normal use.

Jon, a quick question for you. What software/hardware are you using for your race simulation? My 10 year old son spends all his spare time racing on (my) Xbox on forza, if he’s not doing that he’s glued to the tv watching motorsports. I’m thinking it might be time to move him up to the next level.

Cheers

[JonP01 104]

Thanks so much for the replies Jim and Jon - the help here is fantastic :) I'm going to put these and the T-rudders at the top of my hit-list (like Ray I'm going the yoke route instead of joystick though). As for the racing question, I was running a race setup until I packed all my possessions bar the bare necessities up and put it into storage 12 months ago (I sold my house and have been building interstate over the last year for the "semi-retirement" phase of my life - hence the new carpet comment - it really is going to be new lol!). So I've been starved of anything for a year now but have been looking forward to what I will be doing in the new year once I've moved into the new property and settled in.

But my racing software is very old (Race 07 with all the add-ons) however that might not garner as significant reaction from you guys as it might elsewhere (afterall, FSX is still a very big thing in the flight simming community and rightly so). Mind you, even the best simulation out there (imo it is iRacing) is getting onto a decade old now, though obviously it continually evolves.

Same with my hardware. It is time to upgrade everything and even back in 2009 when I built the machine, it really wasn't up to FSX standard (except if kept stock with sliders in the middle) but it was quite OK for race simming. But as soon as you put the add-ons into FSX or become more demanding of even it's stock capability, it crumbled (unsurprisingly). So I've stuck with Race 07 for all this time, partly out of a hardware necessity but also partly because to be quite honest, I don't really think the level of immersion and the physics have been surpassed except for iRacing (my opinion only of course). But if I were building a brand new system today and wanted to dedicate it to race simming, it would probably run either iRacing or the Raceroom software. 

But I'm not really sure about continuing the race simming once I've re-located. With race simming these days, there isn't really the flexibility there is with flight simming. With flight simming, even with a top level certified yoke such as the Yoko, you can still literally clamp it to a standard desk and go flying without any issues at all. With race simming, the hardware these days is much heavier duty, force feedback is mandatory (not so with flight simming imo) and the torque outputs from the hardware are very high. You really need a dedicated cockpit if you are serious about it. And the pedals pressures required can be very high too - way higher than with flight simming. If you want to do a 100 kg one-legged bench press in a race sim every time you brake, then that is no problem these days. I can't imagine flying a plane and needing that much rudder effort - in a sim or the real thing!!

So all that along with a few age related issues such as very mild arthritis makes race simming a much more difficult proposition than flight simming - so rudder pedals and overall ergonomics are a big consideration (hence my great interest in these threads).

[jon b 2,047]

Thanks Jon, I’ll check out iracing.

i did the same and packed all my sim gear away 10 years ago when kids started arriving. I quickly came to the conclusion though to start again with new hardware and and software when I casually picked up a copy of PC pilot one day in January  and it drew me back into the hobby.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

One of our company pilots is very much into the race sim scene. Some of my coworkers were a bit taken aback at the price of the TPR. “You spent that much for a GAME?” - but the pilot didn’t bat an eye. Apparently he is spending as much (or considerably more) on his own racing setup. He did mention that his controllers use force feedback.

[JonP01 104]

30 minutes ago, jon b said:

Thanks Jon, I’ll check out iracing.

i did the same and packed all my sim gear away 10 years ago when kids started arriving. I quickly came to the conclusion though to start again with new hardware and and software when I casually picked up a copy of PC pilot one day in January  and it drew me back into the hobby.

Well the "good" thing about flight simming is that if you are a Microsoft faithful then you no longer have to go endlessly chasing tails with new hardware upgrades. Well, certainly nothing like the extent if years gone by. I lost count of the number of hardware upgrades I made between around 1999 and 2009 - all in the name of getting the latest Flight Simulator version to run acceptably. If MS had continued to bring out newer versions I'm sure I'd just get left behind again just like I did over the last decade.

So far as interest is concerned, it never went away (and if anything my interest in real life aviation has increased over the years). But it does remain a sore point for me personally that you pretty much have to make a "hard" choice these days as to whether you go flight simming or race simming in the event you are trying to do it "seriously". I know there are plenty that manage both but if you really want a higher end setup with all the good hardware bits it really is one or the other sadly - at least from my perspective. Long gone are the "simpler" days where you could just clamp a light weight Microsoft or Logitech wheel to a desk, plonk the pedals on the carpet and go racing, then one minute later re-configure to go flight simming and an hour later get your stimmies playing Quake III.

[JonP01 104]

27 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

One of our company pilots is very much into the race sim scene. Some of my coworkers were a bit taken aback at the price of the TPR. “You spent that much for a GAME?” - but the pilot didn’t bat an eye. Apparently he is spending as much (or considerably more) on his own racing setup. He did mention that his controllers use force feedback.

Well your earlier post about the pilot being interested and impressed really helped put these Thrustmaster pedals at the top of the shortlist for me. Especially when I know how high quality race simming gear is these days. For someone who is both a pro-pilot AND a "high end" race simmer, praising these Thrustmaster pedals is very high praise indeed.

And as Ray pointed out earlier, hall sensors are the icing on the cake, though I have to say I have been quite surprised at the seemingly slow uptake of this technology in flight simming as compared to race simming. Hall sensors make all the difference. You get perfect precision over the long haul which of course is critical with rudder control. I upgraded my Logitech G25 race sim pedals (8 years old at the time) with a hall sensor kit and they felt better than brand new - even after thousands of hours logged on the mechanicals over the years.

Edited November 3, 2018 by JonP01