Ch Products Yoke/Pro Pedals and FSX

[CaptRayzer]

I've been flying MS flight sims from the very first one. I love the instructional flights, but I've never been able to get very far with them. Mainly I believe it's my difficulty with my flight controls. I try to fly with the most realism, and I have good frame rates. I'm using a CH Products Flight yoke and CH products Pro pedals. (I also use a Thrushmaster HOTAS Cougar when flying stick based planes, which I have no control issues at all with that set up.)
My problem seems to lie with my hard to control yoke, mainly the elevator control, which seems hard to pull, and sticky. It seems to do little then too much, which makes me over control. Also the trim wheel seems to be sticky and too sensitive as well, making it's use almost impossible. I'm sure some of this is operator error, and possibly my settings in the sim not being set properly. I can't seem to find the right combination of sensitivity/null zone combos. If you have ANY tips, setting suggestions and or yoke adjustment info I'd be VERY grateful. I contacted CH Pro and there only tip was to lube the yoke with a silicone spray, which helped but not enough.
I'd REALLY like to complete ALL of the flight certificates in FSX, or FS2004 but my controls are limiting me, and I want realism. Any tips there would help too....I'm stuck on the private pilot check ride and the ILS check rides.
Sincerely,
Tim Ray

[Brett_Henderson]

First.. The trim wheel on the yoke, isn't a trim wheel. You use it once to help set the "neutral" spot.

Calibrate the yoke using the Windows calibration utility. Then, with the 172 loaded, use the adjustment wheel on the yoke to make sure the elevator is visually neutral when the yoke is at rest and then ignore it.

[Brett_Henderson]

Oh gosh.. One more thing that's VERY important. The pitch control on FS planes has always been horrible. The Baron is the worst, but they're all bad.

You need to edit the aircraft.cfg file and either lower the control surface deflection, or their effectiveness in the flight tuning paragraph, or both.

If you're not comfy doing that, I'll send you my modifications.

[macca22au]

Brett:  I use both devices in FSX and Vista without significant problems, but have the same problem with pitch sensitivity.   I agree that it is not the hardware problem, but in the settings.  I would be grateful for your scheme.

[bok269]

Im not an expert on sensitivity, but from my experience the certificates are simply too hard to get.  The parameters are hard to make and it just isnt worth it.

[Brett_Henderson]

They're buggy, that's for sure... But along the lines of hard; they're pretty much like real flying in that it takes a good 50 hours of drilling and learning the fundementals and practicing, to get them right. Another 40 hours for the instrument rating.. and so on.

If you go about it like that, you'll get'em  :)

[CaptRayzer]

I am interested in trying your settings.....you can e-mail them to me at rayzer174@msn.com
So you are sayingto force it and not try to finesse it.....I'm sure that will take practice....it seems like i tend to over control.

[bok269]

[quote]They're buggy, that's for sure... But along the lines of hard; they're pretty much like real flying in that it takes a good 50 hours of drilling and learning the fundementals and practicing, to get them right. Another 40 hours for the instrument rating.. and so on.

If you go about it like that, you'll get'em

[Brett_Henderson]

A lot of people say that about real flying too.. I think they're a good thing to work on. You gotta be disciplined though. Not just load the checkride, fail it a few times and get aggravated and give up. Take whatever it is (and it will be everything at first) you're struggling with and just like real flying. Practice, practice, practice, read, read, read, learn, learn, learn. I'm serious in that it can take some 50 hours of actual simming, just to get past the private checkride.. Just stick with it.. you'll pick up all kinds of second-nature flying skills/habbits.. that will make you a better pilot (even in the real world)


Hey

[Brett_Henderson]

CaptRayzer wrote:

I am interested in trying your settings.....you can e-mail them to me at rayzer174@msn.com
So you are sayingto force it and not try to finesse it.....I'm sure that will take practice....it seems like i tend to over control.

Tell me which plane(s) and I'll email them to you one at a time. What I'll do is just send the the aircraft.cfg file zipped up so you can just extract it into the aircraft's folder, replacing the existing one (after backing it up).

[CaptRayzer]

Sorry I didn't realize you had to adjust each plane....lets just start with the ones used in the lessons for now.
Thanks,
Tim