Ah but Hitch at that price, do you not get both the stick and the throttle? Which makes the price of the stick alone approx around the $250 mark. That was was my chain of thought anyhow

Cheers

Hi Guys,

Just 3D Designing the internal workings of the stick. Bit more market research required!!

Option 1 - Floppy Stick

Would people prefer a floppy stick - so when you let go it doesnt spring back to centre or hold position it just falls it which ever direction possible. Realistic for non-stabilised helis.

Option 2 - Self Centreing

When you let go it returns to centre. No helis do this as far as I know.

Option 3 - Force Trim Stlye

Where ever you let go of the stick it stays in that position, but not having to press a button to move it again as in RW. Stablised helis have this function.

Thanks again for the help!

Rich

I think the most important function, if you're making a helicopter controller, would be if you could model a proper force trim. That is, when you hold the force trim button, there is no centering force, and when you release it, then the centre will be whereever the stick is at the time the button is released. If you can make that then you have something really unique and very useful for helicopters!

Would also be interesting to have a proper cyclic controller. I.e. with long movement, so that it's easy to make fine adjustments. And the Apache one with the two grips looks interesting, and I assume useful when you have that many controls.

If money was no object

Floor standing: Option 3, failing that option 1 (could option 3 be a kit add-on, you'd need some kind of ram for that, and small reliable ones wouldn't be exactly cheap).

Desk mounted: I think Option 3. Budget model option 2.

A conversion kit for a Saitek X52 might be popular. Just a thought.

There is no actual centering force in a helicopter cyclic. All the force trim does is maintain the controls in a set position for the aircraft to maintain a set attitude that you or the autopilot puts it in. Pressing the trim release just releases the attitude hold to allow you to adjust the attitude of the aircraft. A cyclic control has no centre point. So to recreate force trim you would need to have actuators on the control to move system if the aicraft is displaced by an outside force such as a gust of wind etc. So the closest I can get with making it affordable is Option 3.

Hope that makes sense.

Well, this is what the flight manual says about trimming.



(emphasise mine)

Yeah sorry, wording it that way. It creates a false centre for the aircraft to return to once displaced wihout the trim release being pressed. I always try to teach that it creates a datum for the aircraft to return to. Saying that the system has a centre made things a little confusing. But yes you're right it that respect the system creates a centre. As regarding putting working version into a stick will make it expensive. It has been done I think in a system from Oz. Will look into it and see what I can come up with. But option 3 and floor standing is certainly doable.

I'll weigh in on this, as I am working on a plan for a one-of conversion of a TM Cougar to a collective. I still plan on using the cougar stick as the cyclic, but am going to extend and angle the shaft a bit to fit my cockpit.

I would love to see a replacement grip option for the cougar. I would think this would allow you to produce the cyclic first, just grip and buttons, making it plug and play with existing controller/software. Seems to be a lot less to support/warranty later. Doing the same for the collective stands to reason as well.

As a replacement stick/throttle, I would pay up to $100/$150 if they were high quality and maintained all of the programming functionality of the Cougar.

If I were to seek an outright replacement of the whole thing, I would want them completely programmable, plug and play, floor mountable, with option 3 force trim on the cyclic. You know.. the whole sha-bang. I would expect to pay $300-$400 for it though.

And now you know what was rattling around in my brain bucket!
Dud

Hi Dud,

Thanks for the reply. The only problem with making just the grip to replace grips on other joysticks is that chances are you may not have enough buttons on the original joystick to be able to wire in all the buttons and switches on the WAH-64 one and vice versa - you may have too many and loose functionality. The grip I am making will have 3 push-buttons. 2 momentary toggle switches with 2 poistions each and 2 4-way HAT controls.

For me to be able to make it compatible with a number of different joysticks I would have to buy those joysticks, check what buttons they have and how the grip connects to the joystick base. Or just try and make it compatible with a couple of the most popular sticks would be the best idea. Or as Flexman suggested, a conversion kit for certain sticks. Reasearch into different sticks required!

Will see how they come out first and then play around with different ideas. First unit will be a grip for my Virtual Blade Flight Control seat, will see how it works on that!

Have started the collective aswell now - pics to follow shortly!

Cheers

Rich