Hey,

I've been away from the world of flight simming for some time now and was wondering whether force feedback technology in joysticks has moved on since 1998!

By this I don't mean sticks that simply shake around when firing machine guns and give you carpal tunnel syndrome, I mean accurate simulation of aircraft stick forces. Real aircraft controls are designed to require a certain amount of stick-force per G, i.e. the pilot will have to exert a certain amount of rearward pressure on the stick in order to achieve a certain G-loading. This means that real pilots fly by feeling of the amount of force they are exerting on the stick, which is much more intuitive than feeling the distance the stick is displaced as with most PC joysticks.

Is modern force feedback technology capable of accurately simulatng this? (I know my old Sidewinder ForceFeedback Pro wasn't!). If so, can anyone recommend a stick?

Thanks alot,

Simon

The Saitek x -65f has this "force steering" you are asking for.
It does not move at all, but just like a F16 stick, it senses your force on it.
There is a thrustmaster cougar mod that also have rhe same system, but it costs quite a bit more.

I have tested the x-65 and I liked it alot.
It takes a while to get used to, but then it is very accurate once you are used.

I reject your hypothesis: Real aircraft do NOT require "a certain amount of stick-force per G".

In most aircraft, a given deflection of the stick corresponds to a given deflection of control surfaces, regardless of speed and G involved. In the F-16, it's a little closer to your premise, but not a whole lot.

For example, in the most typical case (ie not an F-16, F-117...) you move the stick over a certain amount and get, say, a 10 degree aileron deflection. At low speeds, that movement will be easier...and usually result in a slower roll rate...than that same movement at higher speeds. It generally won't be a direct match because you're getting hydraulic assist on most aircraft.

Further, most (probably all) aircraft you could put in a 60 degree bank and adjust the trim such that they'll hold level in that turn hands-off despite pulling, say, 4G. There is no linear relationship between stick pressure and G-loading.

At a given airspeed, all up weight, altitude, etc...then yeah, there's a pretty direct relationship between the two. As soon as any other variable changes, however, game over.

As to Conny's point on force input sticks vs moving sticks....well...as I've said elsewhere, I spent 5 years flying with a force modified Cougar as he describes and thought it was the coolest, smoothest, most accurate **** ever. As it turns out, however, I definitely fly better (smoother control, better dogfighting) with a moving stick, no matter how much I want to like a force stick.

Thanks F19_CoNa, I googled the X65f - looks like it gets mixed reviews, a bit of a love it or hate it stick. It sounds interesting, though I reckon I'd prefer to try before I buy if possible.

Teej:


OK, I didn't phrase that too well - stick-force per g is not constant, and varies with airspeed and altitude. However aircraft are designed to have a minimum stick-force per g value, so as to avoid overloading the aircraft, and to create the right "feel". My point is that in real aircraft you have tactile feedback, and the more g you are pulling (relative to the trimmed position) the more force you will have to exert on the stick. With PC joysticks this feedback is not present, which IRL would be an important indicator of how much stress you are putting on the aircraft.

For instance at low speeds, the controls will feel less senstitive and large deflections will be required to manoeuvre. But at higher speed the controls will "stiffen up" (no jokes plz ) and the aircraft will feel much more responsive.

Control forces are explained pretty well here.

Anyway, I'll probably just get a HOTAS warthog. And I probably need to get out more...

Actually pre-hydraulic era, the concept of stick-force-per-g was very relevant - it tended to be fairly uniform, though some had an unpleasant tendency to tighten the turn at high AOA (hurricane for one). Often the force per-g was significantly lower than what would be considered tolerable today - or for heavier multi-engine aircraft much higher.

The force required to deflect the stick was nearly constant, but the required angle became much lower at higher q-values - this means that the stick 'feels' heavier at high speed, and more force is required to obtain a certain turn-rate as speed increases - this is because a given 'g' produces less rate at higher TAS...

The sidewinder FF2 is more than adequate in portraying this, but only if the coder understands what he needs to implement, and the implementation is good. By default the implementation of most FFB systems is poor within the simulation code.
There is an extension to MS FS that improves the rather poor basic implementation (of FS9 - I'm a little out of date there ~ but I don't think it was transformed by MS). I suspect that the A2A aircraft have it done 'right' though.
ROF is pretty good at making the distinction between stick position and force, but on my FFB2 it glitches from time to time, and some of the FM work is possibly suspect (roll due to cross wind, gyro relating to bank angle rather than rate).