Flight Simulator Controls – Three Steps To The Ultimate Home Cockpit
When you have made the decision to move from casual gamer to serious flight simmer, then it’s essential to obtain the controls to match. Its ok to use a keyboard and mouse when you are just learning and not serious about flying properly, but when you are ready to go to the next level, you must upgrade your controls. There are essentially three levels of realism that you can add to your flight simulator experience and we will cover them here.
The first degree of realism is to toss away the keyboard and mouse and add a flight simulator yoke. Controlling an aircraft with a yoke is a totally different experience to fumbling around trying to find the right key to push on the keyboard. Imagine the feeling of pulling the yoke back as your take off in command of your aircraft, compared to pushing a key on the keyboard. While the yoke is the standard main control in the cockpit, you should be aware that flight sticks are replacing yokes in some planes. For example, the Airbus and modern fighter jets use a stick instead of a yoke. So, you should have an idea of what aircraft you want to fly, before deciding on getting a yoke. If you really want to fly the Airbus A380, then you would be better off with a joystick than a yoke for the most realistic experience.
The next level after you have got the yoke or stick sorted out are rudder pedals. Rudder pedals are used for turns, adjustments during flight and also have toe brakes. Again the feeling of using a control as it is in the cockpit cannot be compared to using a keyboard. To execute a turn properly using the yoke and rudder pedals together will give you a very realistic feeling of being in a cockpit. Pressing a key on the keyboard to control the rudder or brakes is just not a realistic experience.
The third level of realism is to add a control panel, such as a throttle quadrant to the yoke / stick and rudder pedals. A throttle quadrant will let you control not only the throttle but also some of the other vital controls. The control panels allow you to program them and assign any controls to any of the switches, dials, buttons and levers. For example, you could assign the buttons to controls such as the prop pitch, fuel or flaps.
Related posts:
- Flight Simulator Yoke And Why You Need One
- Flight Simulator – Liven It Up With Artificial Traffic
- Microsoft Flight Simulator – How It Was Born
- Airplane Simulator Games Downloads
- Love To Fly? Get An Airplane Simulator!
Tags: computer games, flight simulator controls, flight simulator games, flight simulators
