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Joystick Issue in Prepar 3Dv4

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946
I'm not sure if I need to post this at AVSIM under hardware or post it under P3D. I don't think the problem is with the joystick. I'm using the Microsoft Force Feedback 2 and normally use it with the Force Feedback turned off via the simulator and all boxes unchecked. The joystick has no spring action, which is what I like about the joystick, and that's how the flight yokes work in the real aircraft. There is no spring action of the yoke in the real aircraft. When using FSX, the joystick has no spring action and moves freely. This is what I want. But when I fly using the P3D, there is this spring action with my joystick as though I were using a spring action joystick like the Satiak. Is there anything I can do to make the joystick work as it does in FSX? Yes, I have the forcefeedback turned off in P3D.
 
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=rk=

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FYI, if a pilot lets go of the yoke, it doesn't suddenly flop to the side, sending the plane into a hard bank. The yoke, or stick, stays centered, due to the naturally occurring stability built into every airframe. You may have read or heard about this, how some radical fighters actually have negative stability, meaning that without computer intervention, the craft would be prone to increasingly unstable oscillations. Conversely, some jet liners are so smooth, they can be said to land themselves.
Why do you think they put the springs in there? It seems like joystick manufacturers would want to mimic reality as much as possible, which, as it turns out, is very true. The simulator has no headwind, no lift, nothing to hold control surfaces to the neutral position, as happens in real life. So in the simulator, joysticks have to have springs, or force feedback, to be even close to feeling real. Now you want to go and undo this, because all real world gaming joysticks are limp this and every real world joystick you've ever seen, in a cold and dark cockpit, is limp, except now you know exactly why Lockheed Martin does this, because it is truly a flight simulator.
 
Messages
946
FYI, if a pilot lets go of the yoke, it doesn't suddenly flop to the side, sending the plane into a hard bank. The yoke, or stick, stays centered, due to the naturally occurring stability built into every airframe. You may have read or heard about this, how some radical fighters actually have negative stability, meaning that without computer intervention, the craft would be prone to increasingly unstable oscillations. Conversely, some jet liners are so smooth, they can be said to land themselves.

Hi Rick,
I already know about these things. I've flown real airplanes and the yoke moves smoothly without any spring action working against you. If you're on the ground in a real aircraft and you push the yoke either fully forward or backwards, it does not return to center via a spring action. I know you have aerodynamic forces, but these are not the type of forces that I'm referring to, and the so called spring action does not mimic these forces. Airplanes are designed to stabilized themselves when you release the yoke but they are not due to the spring action of the yoke itself. They are due to outside external aerodynamic forces and aircraft design. The spring action force that most joysticks have are not the type of forces you experience in the real aircraft. If you purchased the Saitek flight simulator yoke with the throttle quadrant that sells for around $170.00, you will find that this yoke moves very smoothly in all directions, and is exactly what the real aircraft does. There is NO spring action that works against you as you move the yoke forwards, backwards, or side-to-side in the real aircraft, and that includes real commercial planes. Even on the real airbus that has a side stick, there is no direct feedback nor feel system like in your joystick. But there is a simple spring centering device that will neutralize the side stick and center it, but only when you move it to one side and release it.


Why do you think they put the springs in there? It seems like joystick manufacturers would want to mimic reality as much as possible, which, as it turns out, is very true. The simulator has no headwind, no lift, nothing to hold control surfaces to the neutral position, as happens in real life. So in the simulator, joysticks have to have springs, or force feedback, to be even close to feeling real.

It doesn't matter rather the manufacturers uses the spring action in their joysticks to try and mimic these other forces. The fact is that the real aircrafts DO NOT have spring action yokes, and this spring action can be turned off in FSX. It just won't turn off in P3D. As I said, the spring action joysticks do not mimic the yokes in real aircrafts. These force feedback joysticks are just an added feature and they themselves do not always mimic the real world forces, and many times they are over exaggerated.


Now you want to go and undo this, because all real world gaming joysticks are limp this and every real world joystick you've ever seen, in a cold and dark cockpit, is limp, except now you know exactly why Lockheed Martin does this, because it is truly a flight simulator.

No, I am not undoing anything here because I know what forces you will experience in the real aircraft, and they are external aerodynamic forces, NOT the spring action forces you experience with most joysticks. I'm not so sure the sim has anything to do with this. If you purchased the Saitek flight simulator yoke with the throttle quadrant I described above, you will not feel this spring action, even in the Prepar 3D simulator. The Prepar P3D simulator allows you to turn the force feedback off just as FSX does.

Ken.
 
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=rk=

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Can't make it plainer. The springs represent the automatic self centering nature of all flight yokes and if you don't want them, you already know the $170 stick works the way you want.
 
Messages
946
Can't make it plainer. The springs represent the automatic self centering nature of all flight yokes and if you don't want them, you already know the $170 stick works the way you want.

Hi Rick,
I think the problem is that my joystick is not a 64 bit version. Ever since I've upgraded to the 64 bit operating system, the joystick only functions as a generic device and I cannot even install the original drivers that came with it because it's not compatible for the 64 bit operating system. Even so, it still works and it will turn off the force feedback in FSX and works just fine. Since P3Dv4 is a 64 bit and I'm running it on a 64 bit system, I think this could be the reason why it won't turn off in P3D, or there could be other reasons. I agree that they're using the spring action to automatically center the joystick but just never liked it because that's not the forces you experience in the real aircrafts.

Ken.
 

Roy Holmes

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Ken,
You are half way correct. Sorry to pick this up late, but I believe it needs clarification.

The purpose of the spring is, essentially, to provide a stick force per g, commonly known as "feel". In addition you can trim out existing stick forces from being out of trim.
You are correct in saying that you can move the stick anywhere on the ground in a real airplane without having spring forces, but only where the controls have no power assistance.
In the air with non-power controls the airflow straightens out the control surfaces and moving the stick requires physical force, removing that force causes the controls to center again. If you can not fly level without stick force it just means you need to trim out the force. For example, if you increase airspeed the wing will provide more lift and the nose will want to rise. Trimming nose down usually moves a trim tab on the elevator trailing edge and it's aerodynamic lift moves the elevator to where it stops making the nose pitch up. In short, the airflow provides feedback or feel.

In airplanes with powered controls the system is irreversible which means that aerodynamic forces provide no feel. If you just had a powered system with no feel, precision flying would be difficult not to mention that you could easily jerk the stick and overstress the airplane. Most of these systems have spring feed back and the trim process centers the spring mechanism so as to zero out the spring feel. In these airplanes you feel the spring force when moving the controls on the ground. Most joysticks emulate a power flight control feel by being spring centred.

So yes, non-powered airplanes on the ground do not have spring resistance to control movements, but airplanes with powered controls do. As regards side controllers they have spring resistance so as to give some feel, those controllers work more from pressure than physical movement.

Force feedback can be disabled, spring feel cannot.
Roy
 
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