CH Products Controls

[nwadc10]

"Hi Everyone, For those who can't afford to build a full home cockpit, you may be able to afford CH Products hardware. I ordered their Flight Sim Yoke USB, Pro Pedals USB, and the Throttle Quadrant. I received all three at the end of last week and installed them quite easily, plug and play of course. The Throttle Quadrant comes out of the box setup for a 4 engine jet but also come with the controls for a twin engine prop with a constant speed propellor. The TQ was rather difficult to setup the axis to include thrust reverse until I found and easy to follow document on a website. The next task was to decide what to assign the 12 buttons to on the TQ. I settled on using two switches (two buttons each, one in the up position and one in the down position) for 4 starters, the remaining 4 switches ( 8 buttons total) as fuel control for each engine. The FS Yoke and Pro Pedals were much easier to setup and didn't require any reading. The realism of flying RFP has dramatically improved and it's amazing how smooth the airplane flies. Since the rudder pedals provide for differential braking and the throttles for differential thrust, I can turn the plane on a dime. Check the products out at www.chproducts.com If anyone is thinking about purchasing these products and has any questions feel free to contact me. I bought the set from Amazon.com and saved more money than I thought was possible, free shipping too <!--emo&:)-->[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]<!--endemo--> Justin"

[Davest]

"Justin, Thanks for the information, I've been looking at getting the same setup as the old joystick just dosn't cut it. Could you please post a link to that document you found on setting up the TQ. How do you find the Yoke for the 742? Does it have a neutral position, also how do you find the trim on the yoke? I've heard it's a little stiff and over sensitive. Also do you find now that you spend alot more time hands on rather then leaving it to the autopilot, especially for landings? Thanks again. "

[nwadc10]

"Hi David, I find the yoke to work well with not only the 742 but all planes I've used it on so far (C172 - Real Air Simulations, Wing of Power B-17, and some others). The yoke itself does have a self-centering feature with a feel of more resistence the farther from center you go...just like the real thing. Of course that resistence does not change with airspeed like in a real plane but as far as I'm concerned it does it's job very well. As for trim, I don't touch the yokes physical trim. The yoke has a rocker switch to accomodate elevator trim and another you can use for either rudder or aileron trim. I use the rocker switch exclusively for trim and therefore it behaves exactly as Ralph programmed it to work in the 742. I do hand fly the plane a little more now. I must say though that I do not use Autoland, I like to leave the ILS down to minimums challenge up to myself <!--emo&:)-->[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]<!--endemo--> You could count the number autolandings I've done in my FS career on less than one hand. Aside from that, on departure I do wait a little while longer before turning on the autopilot. I do most of my hands on flying with the B-17 and practice for real world flying with the C172. Here are some useful links: <a href='http://home.att.net/~stickworks/' target='_blank'>StickWorks</a> <a href='http://www.ch-hangar.com/news.php' target='_blank'>CH Hangar</a> <a href='http://home.att.net/~stickworks/cmnote02.zip' target='_blank'>Direct Link to Setup Document from the Stick Works webpage</a> The directions in the document require a registered copy of FSUIPC. If you don't have a registered version of FSUIPC, look around on the above websites for directions to setup using CH's Control Manager. Any more questions, let me know. Justin"