Hi all,

I have created a topic about this on the official forums but I have little hope to get any answer in there. Searching for discussions about this issue is quite difficult, as 99,99% of the search results are about creating deadzones instead of getting rid of them 😕

Here is a short summary: in my MSFS2020 on Steam, on all the planes that use the fly-by-wire system (mostly fighter jets such as F-35 by Dino, F-15 by Dean, Mirage2000 by Miltech etc...), I have a very annoying deadzone on the pitch-up axis which makes it impossible to perform fine adjustment in the pitch axis when in flight. Basically, when I pull the joystick back slowly, for the first few degrees of movement, nothing happens at all in the sim. Then, when I reach a certain threshold, the control in the sim suddenly jumps back to what it should be, like to catch up with the input.

It's not a lag. I can pull my joystick back one or two degrees (pure estimation) for thirty seconds and it will just be ignored by the sim. Then when I reach 3 degrees, the sim suddenly takes the input into consideration and applies three degrees of input at once, which is quite a "big" input. So it's not really a deadzone, it's more like a step or something ??

A few more details on the situation:

• Pitch-down is ok, only pitch up is affected
• roll seems ok as well, in both directions
• ALL deadzones are set to zero in the sim controller settings
• pitch axis white dot moves just fine in the sim controller sensitivity settings, no lag, no interference, no steps, just moves as expected.
• aircraft that don't use fly-by-wire fly just fine with the same controller settings. No deadzones, no steps, no problems.

The problem becomes really annoying when trying to fly in formation or when attempting an aerial refuelling with Airshow Assistant. With a conventional aircraft, I can connect to the tanker in Ace mode without troubles. But with a fly by wire aircraft, it's simply impossible, as I cannot fine-tune my aircraft attitude.

Any suggestion is welcome 😞

 

 

Totally agree! I would love to fly the stock FA-18 but It is impossible to bring it down smoothley.

Upon flare i will bring the stick back slowly and nothing happends, nothing, nothing and then it pitches up like crazy.

The only plane that "feels good" and you can grease it down is the FBW A320. 

Sorry for my late reaction. Yes it's kind of similar on my side.

I suspected the A320 by FBW might have brought some modifications in that area but I have uninstalled it already, and the problem is still there 😕

I'm at a loss. I will try once more to empty my community folder and try to fly the sim without any addons, but at this point I doubt I'll ever find a solution for this problem 😕

I haven't tried in MSFS2024 yet though... But anyways my AirShow Assistant doesn't work in there yet if I'm not mistaken, so I cannot do any aerial refueling there either 😛

 

 

I ran away from 2020 because of this.

dd

I just gave it a try with an empty Community folder.

Launched a flight with the default Super Hornet => Problem still occurs. This issue is simply ruining my modern military aircraft flights. 😞

 

Bumping the topic back up, because I'm now progressively switching over to MSFS2024... and after giving a try to the Eurofighter in a short test flight, it seems the problem is exactly the same in the new sim 😞

The worst thing is that it seems nobody seems to care about that issue. It's close to impossible to make any search, since it returns only conversations about how to adjust the controllers sensitivities and such, which is not related on the problem.... I'm at a loss. At this point, flying any modern military jet is kind of ruined by this issue....

Any of you tried FSUIPC? You can set the app to directly intercept hardware commands after disabling the rubbish Asobo ones. Multiple options for calibration, filtering, dead zones (or lack of them!) and slopes (response curves) are then available. 

I wouldn't fly a sim without it. 

EDIT :If the sim in your fbw planes for example is not processing joystick inputs until after 3 degrees of movement then fsuipc can be calibrated to give the 4 degree output at 1 degree. 

Edited August 24, 2025Aug 24 by sloppysmusic

Well, I understand the idea of your workaround but this can also be done via the response curves in the in game menu.

The thing is, it's not like MSFS doesn't get the joystick input. The sim itself it refusing to apply less than 4° inputs (just an example to keep with the numbers you used). I'm pretty sure that FSIUPC can tell "it's just one degree at that point", the sim will just process it as a normal 1 degree input from the stick, and will ignore it. Same if I would modify the response curve of the joystick to extend the deadzone manually. And in the end, I would just end up with a completely unusable joystick because of the big deadzone that kills any kind of precise control, which is vital during refuelling...

Also, on a general way, the fact that it happens only with fly-by-wire aircraft and not with regular ones excludes any input/hardware/response curves issues in my opinion.

Bumping this topic, in case there is anybody here trying to perform aerial refuelling with the modern jets that are plagued by the MSFS FBW...

I have finally found a solution to the problem, and it's a small toolbar icon to disable the FBW system with a single mouse click. It's a toggle so one more click and the FBW is back ON again.

Of course it's not a realistic solution since you'll then have to trim your modern jet and will loose any stability, but at least you now have a chance to perform a realistic aerial refuelling in planes like the F-15, the Mirage2000 or the Eurofighter (by CJ, I haven't tried the one from Dino yet).

Addon is there: https://flightsim.to/file/41883/fbw-toggle#:~:text=Usage,one of them is active.