Yokes that work better (brain storm thread)

[ahaka]

This company offers a realistic Airbus sidestick "plug-and-play": https://www.fsc.it/Product.aspx?lang=ENG&ID=4b728bed-0050-443f-867c-158da37c95c4

It uses ffb motors to simulate the dampening effect of the Airbus sidestick. Since Airbus sidestick has the same resistance in all phases of flight, no additional programming is required; the resistance/dampening of the force feedback remains the same all the time.

So for a 747 or any other Boeing yoke, once the mechanical design is finished, all it needs is a software that will read certain parameters from the sim (PSX) and operates the motors accordingly.

I believe this would be completely achievable if such company would want to do it.

[farrokh747]

Wow! So you're now really controlling your valve by the elevator feel data output stream from PSX? I guess you're the first :-)

Getting there :-)   - still needs some tweaking - as i mentioned, there is a difference in rigging from the acft to the sim  -  much shorter cables, quadrant sizes etc....

Thanks for including this var!

fc

[B747jetpilot]

hello,

is there anybody on the forum using the Brunner force feedback yoke?

[ahaka]

Too expensive, I know, but what would it take to get a PSX plugin for this: https://www.fsc.it/Product.aspx?lang=ENG&ID=a5e491e8-9745-42ca-bbd5-09b33f849343&CODE=160263

[Roddez]

Too expensive, I know, but what would it take to get a PSX plugin for this: https://www.fsc.it/Product.aspx?lang=ENG&ID=a5e491e8-9745-42ca-bbd5-09b33f849343&CODE=160263

That's a question for FSC - they would need to do the work to make their product work with PSX.  Hardy has provided all the necessary documentation in this forum and also on the DVD.

Cheers,

Rod.

[Martin Baker]

The elevators are not trimmed. Instead, the whole tail plane (horizontal stabilizer) is pitched. This gives much more range and effect, while not significantly altering the drag, and not putting constant strain on the elevators. The yoke also does not move.

To give the pilot some feedback of the trim situation, the counterforce of the yoke is changed. I believe the yoke becomes heavier to operate when the trim changes more to tail-heavy, to avoid pilots accidentally overcontrolling the aircraft in pitch. I may be wrong here, careful.

An out of trim stabilizer is directly noticeable because you need to keep a force on the yoke to remain at the same pitch.

I have never understood elevator trim in the real aeroplane (as opposed to my plastic yoke for PSX) and so I wonder if someone could answer this question which I'm phrasing in a way in which I can understand it:

If, say, the yoke is in a neutral position and the 747 is in trim, and after adjustments I am holding the column under pressure, pulling back so that the controls are 2 inches closer to me, when I apply elevator trim, do I hold the yoke exactly where it is while trimming and feel the pressure release, or do I slowly release the yoke forwards by 2 inches while applying trim, so that its position is where it was originally but now in trim under new conditions? Does that question make sense? (Obviously the latter is the case for my plastic yoke at home.)

Thanks, Martin

[ahaka]

Martin,

In real aircraft (to my understanding this also includes all airliners that require manual trimming), you will feel the forces relief on the yoke as you trim it. It feels very natural and intuitive: No need to think about when to release the yoke or how much trim is needed.

[ahaka]

That's a question for FSC - they would need to do the work to make their product work with PSX.  Hardy has provided all the necessary documentation in this forum and also on the DVD.

Cheers,

Rod.

Yes, I know. I did not mean this question to Hardy, actually. Just thinking out loud what would make the manufacturers support PSX. A very high end desktop sim product should be aimed for very high end simulator software users, which currently only PSX offers at this level.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It is always a calculation:

how many new yokes sold
----------------------------------------------------
how many hours to write the software

Only if somebody, or a group of people, team up and offer to separately pay for development, you can probably get somewhere in a reasonable time frame.


Hoppie

[Martin Baker]

Martin,

In real aircraft (to my understanding this also includes all airliners that require manual trimming), you will feel the forces relief on the yoke as you trim it. It feels very natural and intuitive: No need to think about when to release the yoke or how much trim is needed.

Many thanks - that answers my question! M

[ahaka]

It must be exactly what you said, Hoppie.

And for that price, there won't be too many buyers waving their credit cards ready to make a purchase. It's a vicious circle, isn't it?

But if the price would be half of that, or say one third, maybe there would be a decent number of people interested.

One can dream that there would be a day we have force feedback controls for flight sims that is on the same level with what is currently offered for racing simulators. Also in terms of affordability.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

If, say, the yoke is in a neutral position and the 747 is in trim, and after adjustments I am holding the column under pressure, pulling back so that the controls are 2 inches closer to me, when I apply elevator trim, do I hold the yoke exactly where it is while trimming and feel the pressure release, or do I slowly release the yoke forwards by 2 inches while applying trim, so that its position is where it was originally but now in trim under new conditions? Does that question make sense? (Obviously the latter is the case for my plastic yoke at home.)

It is sort of both.

As you trim the tailplane, you need less and less elevator action to keep the airplane pitch where you want, so you can put less and less force on the yoke, which therefore will move closer and closer to the zero position. When the airplane is in trim, you can fly hands-off and the yoke will be "centered" in the pitch axis.

Due to the tailplane, the yoke neutral center in the pitch axis does never move.

However the yoke neutral center in the roll axis, and the neutral center of the rudder pedals, DO move while trimming those axes. When hands and feet off, and trimming, you see those axes move out of center. Which also increases drag, as you permanently extend flight control surfaces.


Hoppie

[SwissCharles]

Hi folks

Or, perhaps, the FFB-Yoke system of this gentleman in merry ole England could be adapted to suit?
Looks like he has got a rather complete looking system incl. drivers for the brush-less motors, software et al..
http://bffsimulation.com/FFB-yoke-1.php

What do you guys think about this solution?

[the mad hatter]

@ Charles, I paid for the BFF  (Stuart) Motion Control loading which is available for PSX (not many people know that)   and  , I looked into and had discussions with Ian about the other surfaces what it amounted to at end of day was 10K GBP to have that ( 6 surfaces or items), at that price personally I am adverse to paying for development of software that I do not own, however Xk I can swallow that being said I do not mind fronting some of the costs as a group purchase, but I do not want to be lead or PIC on such a project I would prefer to be limited to chq writing   

As an after thought  it works with PD3/MSFS if ones aircraft is a PD3 model it should work as is right?  I do not know my experience is somewhat limited; to me its all a black art that requires sacrifices to the sim gods which usually eat your  dollars your right arm and next unborn child.   I will reach out to FSC and get a dollar amount to have their item work with PSX and revert back here

UPDATE 0920 FEB17   had a chat email sent  explained that I am looking for an under floor system and need a bridge? between their linkages and mine as I do not want to replace and rewire the real yokes currently in place. result: He is reaching out to their engineering department to see if it is possible and if so what are the development costs using PSX:  I have feeling it does not come with vaseline LOL

UPDATE 0902 FEB18   here is copy and paste from their reply ...
Hello Mr. Sutherland,

The difficult of Your request is divided in 2 main problems.
1) the hardware side (linking) , we need some technical drawing for a first approach to the possibility of integration.
2) the software side, as far as I know, PSX can interface only the SIOC system, not the FSUIPC, probably with a FSUIPC interface to PSX it could be possible, but we can't write an interface for PSX,
But if the Aerowinx company want to do so, we can provide our SDK for interfacing, try to asking them.

My Comment : Now I have reached my level of incompetence   suggestions on way forward?

found this:   https://www.fsc.it/Product.aspx?lang=ENG&ID=aac5237c-5b93-4af3-a876-db06db4f4b9f&CODE=390457

that should work but expensive : I would be prepared to share development costs with anyone to go the BFF development costs   10K is total last I spoke to him will reconfirm

[Jason M Tutwiler]

This has me thinking of a couple things. 
1.) Is it realistic for the yoke to not return to exact center when released?  Same with rudder pedals?

2.) One could do some fancy software work and use force sensors, so it wouldn't "feel" the same, but the software could react according to the data from the sensor(s).  The visual and instruments could potentially be more accurate depending on the amount of force applied; assuming you had good reference metrics.  Maybe it already does that or I could be missing something.  I'm not exactly sure?  I've never seen a force feedback yoke since Microsoft had one for FS years ago.  I'm sure they exist, but I can't imagine it being cheap.  I mean, I have redbird Alloy gear and for the kit it was slightly over 2k USD.  I guess none of this stuff is really cheap, is it?  lol  I went through 3 or 4 saitek kits before finally getting fed up with plastic gear slippage garbage and bit the bullet for Redbird.  I just saw the link for the kit the mad hatter posted.  15k.  yikes!  My g/f thinks I'm nuts for dropping ~$1300 for this software, and a FDS MAX-Pro CDU.  I'm trying to convince her to let me get the MCP.  heh, so far no luck!  I have quite a bit of money dumped into P3D addons.  PMDG, FSlabs, a2a, majestic, the more "realistic ones" with respect to systems modeling.  She asks, how many airplanes do you have?  Do you know everything about every airplane?  Shush woman!

[Hardy Heinlin]

1.) Is it realistic for the yoke to not return to exact center when released?  Same with rudder pedals?

It's important that all controls return to exact center when released.

All controls. Elevator, aileron, rudder, nose wheel steering tiller. Real aircraft and simulator.


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Jason M Tutwiler]

Hardy,
Yikes.  It's probably not a bad idea to calibrate it every time.  Both in Windows and PSX.  Something is flaky, because my throttles jump in PSX and yoke on a different sim.  The yoke issue mainly happens in a different sim Airlinetools A32x and I can fix it by setting a tolerance, and recalibrating, otherwise the x and y for the yoke aileron and elevator bounce by .1 ie - from .5 to .6 and it's a very fast back and forth.  It also happens in P3D UNTIL i calibrate.  I haven't dug into PSX yet with respect to the yoke, although it seems fairly stable and I have it configured for my gear, but does NOT return to center 100% of the time.

[Jason M Tutwiler]

I know, I'm using a yoke on an airbus.  That is a sin, I apologize.  lol

[Hardy Heinlin]

I haven't dug into PSX yet with respect to the yoke, although it seems fairly stable and I have it configured for my gear, but does NOT return to center 100% of the time.

Here's a tutorial about the calibration tools in PSX. Notice the procedure to detect the best center tolerance:

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=4805.0


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Jason M Tutwiler]

Hardy,
Thank you, i'll check that out.  If the flight hardware isn't calibrated every time, is it normal for values to jump around when they're not touched?  It can't be, because I even have axis' that aren't configured jumping by .1 such as mixture and propeller on the throttle quadrant.  I'm going to do some trouble shooting but I may end up calling Redbird.