In a real aircraft 'the centre' moves in response to aero-loads. In the sense that the stick wants to return to the 'stick-free' point you are correct - in the sense that the stick wants to return to the 'centre of travel' ~ well that is (almost) never true.

The best method of simulating it is to have someone who understands how it works programming a FFB response which provides an off-centre stick-free/no force location, a friction response 'smothering' the spring-response at low stick forces, and a spring response increasing with deflection 'out of trim' and at higher airspeeds (with possibility of control reversal at certain mach/aoa/beta values).

I think the OP would be better served by even a basic FFB implementation (offset centre and aero-loads depending on out-of-trim and "q"), but removing the spring (on a damped stick) is better than a misleading 'centre' position on a simply sprung undamped stick.

I'm on board with pretty much all of that, Lieste. The aircraft will always be fighting to hold its stick/yoke/cyclic in a position dictated by load and trim and this will rarely be "center". I'm with you (and the OP) on that.

However, It sounds like the OP thinks trimming happens automatically....if one assumed the aircraft self trimmed to wherever you moved the stick, then he would be correct. However, I'm not aware of (again, I'm not going to say "there are none") any non-fbw aircraft that trim themselves out in this manner (instantly, as soon as you move the stick). Controls do not "balance" themselves like that.

If you're in an aircraft trimmed straight and level, and you want to bank to the right, you would push/turn the stick/yoke to the right until achieving the desired bank angle, and then release pressure. The controls would move back towards that trimmed position as you released pressure...and if that turn resulted in a change in airspeed, the controls wouldn't move exactly back to where they were. The OP's words indicate that if he released pressure, the stick would stay to the right (and the a/c would keep rolling)...and he would have to apply pressure to move the stick back to the left. In fact, he states that outright.

A looooooong time ago (15-20 years) I had a joysticks that you could disable the centering springs on. The only control I could stand to have non-centering when flying was throttle. Flying with no centering force was...bizarre.

Well chaps I have to reconsider my opininion on this matter. At least partly.
Today was a nice weather so I was flying a lovely motor glider (Duo Discus). This topic came into my mind so I tried to concentrate on how does the stick "feel and behave".

I have to aprove that at crusing speed and slight deflections the stick stayed where I left it. The frictional force in the steering system was simply higher than the resulting aerodinamical forces aka moment on the steering surfaces.

It was most obvious on ailerons. On the elevator it was less noticable, and the stick recentered to trimmed position on this axis.

Of course it doesn`t mean that there were no recentering forces, but the friction was higher.

Hey, that resembles what I said

I think you're going about this the wrong way complaining about the available controllers. There are specialty pole cyclics and force feedback HOTAS for sale. The issue is they're problematic either due to cost or glitches.

All fighters have either "center sprung" or pressure sticks. Fighter jets, space sims, and flying shooters are the dominant market in flight sims/games. These stick types are also cheaper to build and build reliably. These are all reasons why you see more of them than other controller types for sale.

I think a more appropriate discussion is from the standpoint of the sims themselves.

Conventional, non-digital fly-by-wire helos use cyclics, which is admittedly best emulated with a force feedback stick like the Logitech G940... a troublesome product according to many people. Lite civilian and prop mil aircraft are probably also best modeled with something like the G940 where you can get rid of centering and just have resistance to motion, not to mention have the sim choose where the stick stays as a result of aero forces and trim. And feel a stall coming on with vibration and tug.

Digital fly-by-wire helos actually use Attitude Command & Attitude Hold principally and are accompanied by pressure sticks, though on the RAH-66 its had more throw than even the newest US fighter pressure sticks. The new Cobra Zulu/Viper uses a pressure stick like this and like Comanche derives from the early research done by the Army labs with ADOCS and LHX.

The common cockpit upgrades for Chinook and Blackhawk, as well as the new Block III Apache, eventually dropped the new full AFCS and HOTAS sidestick system upgrades from the production implementations and have moved those back to a later date. That's were all the helo research points to upgrades and new designs using in the future. X2, for example.

Oddly, very few helo sims even give the option of attitude commanding, even though it is simple to do. Off the top of my head, only Longbow Anthology and Gunship! can do it (let's ignore Gunship 2000 for a moment), while X-Plane can allow a slow-to-respond automatic trimming of pitch loads to sort of mimic this. X-Plane and MS Flight Simulator also do roll performance fairly well, with the former giving optional autopilot wings-leveling.

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=7789

Janes used AC/AH clearly for the reason you've stumbled upon in reverse: the type of joysticks most people already own. They appear to have originally attempted a conventional style and had a trimmer, but thankfully took the other route. You can still find the trimmer assignment, but it's counterproductive and otherwise useless.

In helo sims that either have perfect automatic wings-leveling (EECH, Comanche Gold, optionally in Gunship!, etc) or that are clearly better to be flown with force feedback sticks (DCS Blackshark), you can get a crude form of ACAH using PPJoy and GlovePIE with a center-sprung or pressure stick to compensate for the unnaturalness.

I will say, though, that if you don't use a FFB stick or GlovePIE with conventional helos, then you're better off with something that is center sprung with a lite & long throw like a lubed X52. Enemy Engaged is so simple in its behavior that it's fine with a pressure stick and trimmer, though better with GlovePIE, in my opinion. Blackshark is harder to use with an X65F compared to the X52 when just using the trimmer button or especially with Flight Director turned off.

Still, I've gotten fairly comfortable with the X65F for all my purposes now. I do wish the palm plate was angled downward towards the pinky rather than horizontal, or came with a riser plate about a cm up on the front side and no rise on the pinky end. I find it a little cramped otherwise in the pinky area.

Oh, and the pickle button and china hat POV are swapped compared to US aircraft on it. It's nice, though. Lots of hats. I haven't even bothered with the 4 modes. In fact, I wish the 4 mode button could just be programmed as a switch if I wanted.

So for your purpose, you might want the Logitech G940 and modify it internally to work better as stated on the forums. It also has extensive settings for changing how the force feedback works. The hysteresis issues, which I suspect are related to the high resolution USB signals coexisting, will not completely resolve.

Or pay a grand for one of those cyclic/old-style fighter setups from MaxFlightStick.com they linked above. Goodness. No buttons or programming for that much? They're probably hand built to order. That's how small the market is.

Or just accept and embrace the new trends in aircraft design toward where our joysticks already are at.