As expected, I got my complete set of CH USB controls for Christmas... Fighterstick, Throttle and ProPedals. Now I'm all set up to fly the helicopter. I fooled around with it for a couple of hours today. It's been a year or so since I've flown the helicopter so I'm a little rusty and I'm not used to the FS2002 flight model and I'm not used to these controls but I can still do it. I can fly and land and hover but all with less ease than I used to. Instead of having total control I'm still a little wild. I'm wondering if there is a big null zone set up on the stick and pedals. It felt like it.... bad for helicopters. Now if I could just get the CH control manager software figured out. I'm still using the sticks in "Direct" mode. Even with Bob Church trying to help me, I'm still having trouble with it.

Rick Lee www.rickleephoto.com

• RE: Helicopter,Ben Chiu, 04:02z, 12-27-01
  • RE: Helicopter,RickLee, 04:25z, 12-27-01
  • RE: Helicopter,Vulcan, 00:33z, 12-31-01
    • RE: Helicopter,RickLee, 00:47z, 12-31-01
    • RE: Helicopter,Ben Chiu, 01:56z, 12-31-01
      • RE: Helicopter,Vulcan, 11:19z, 01-01-02
• RE: Helicopter,James, 12:22z, 12-27-01
  • RE: Helicopter,RickLee, 03:18z, 12-28-01
    • RE: Helicopter,Ben Chiu, 03:56z, 12-28-01
    • RE: Helicopter,James, 17:58z, 12-28-01

Greetings Rick:

FS2K2 defaults to the funky time-based control sensitivity setting. Try adding:

"stick_sensitivity_mode=0" into the (square bracket)CONTROLS(square bracket) section of FS2002.CFG to return to linear motion.

Hope this helps!
Ben

Hmm... thanks Ben, I'll try that.

Rick Lee www.rickleephoto.com

Ben,

Could you explain a little more about the effect of the default 'time-based' sensitivity, I am intrigued and wonder if I should add that line to my cfg for fixed wing a/c.

Thanks

'Vulcan'
8nm NE of EGCC

Ben can give you more information about the sensitivity, but let me add that after I added that line that Ben posted, all of a sudden my yoke and stick would not give me full travel. Full travel of the physical yoke yielded about half travel of the sim yoke. So I went into the Control Sensitivities menu and upped the Aileron and Elevator Sensitivity so that I could get full travel. Now it's linear and I'm happy. Also, I really didn't feel any NEED to do this when using a yoke with fixed-wing craft... but now that it's done I THINK it's better. <shrug>

Rick Lee www.rickleephoto.com

Greetings Vulcan:

>Could you explain a little more about the effect of the
>default 'time-based' sensitivity, I am intrigued and
>wonder if I should add that line to my cfg for fixed wing
>a/c.

In a real airplane, if you move a control x% of its total travel, the control surface will move x%. MS's default in FS2K and FS2K2 sensitivity setting is time-based. What this means is if you move the control x%, the control surface will still move x%, however, depending on what the sensitivity setting is, will delay the amount of time it'll take for the control to reach x%.

I wrote about how to visually view the different effects in my FS2K book. You can do this by cycling to an exterior view and watching how the control surfaces react to various control inputs with the various settings and file modification combonations.

Anyway, Rick was right about FS2K2. MS has changed the total travel range of the sensitivities slider so 100% now means 100%. This wasn't so in FS2K.

Just FYI, our FlightAdventures aircraft are designed using linear travel and require the senstivities settings to be set to specific points to mimic the real aircraft as accurately as FS will allow.

Hope this helps!
Ben

Thanks for that extra information Ben.

I am not sure if it affects the way I have my stick calibrated (will have to check via spot view), because I use Pete Dowson's FSUIPC to calibrate after manually setting the 'scale' in FS2002.cfg to '64' and null zone to '0'.

Off to test

Happy New Year to you all.

'Vulcan'
8nm NE of EGCC

Hi Rick,

Glad to see you have your new controls but sad to hear your having problem's. I'm stumped for a reply as my flight controls are by Copy Cat (MRVC) purpose built for Heli's. All I had to do was calibrate them.

The Bell in FS2002 handles a hell of a lot more stable than in both FS98 and 2000 I just love it. Shame I can't get any of my FS98/2000 Heli's to either load into FS2002 or to fly as well as the Bell can at present.

Regards,

James.

OK... changing that sensitivity setting that Ben mentioned sure helped. Am I to understand that by default it has some sort of speed-sensitive setting like a speed-sensitive mouse or something? If so, that's insane. I found the null-zone settings. I forgot that they are in a separate menu from the axes assignments. Now that I have the null zones out and the insane part out, I'm controlling the helicopter pretty well. All I need is some more practice to get it right. Oh yeah, I almost forgot... I found a really bad thing about this CH USB combination in "Direct" mode. The stick has a throttle on it and the throttle has a stick on it. (make sense?) So, if you are using the big throttle and you happen to touch the little throttle (on the stick), then it will momentarily cancel out the big throttle. Bad if you happen to be in a hover closer the ground. I guess that will be fixed if I get the "Managed" mode working. BTW... apropos of nothing, the throttle unit has a tiny little joystick on it which you work with your thumb which(in Direct mode) actually works the main joystick. It's hilarious to fly the helicopter just using the left hand.

Boy, that dust-up effect sure is cool. Love that.

Rick Lee www.rickleephoto.com

>Am I to understand that by default it has
>some sort of speed-sensitive setting like a
>speed-sensitive mouse or something?

Yep.

> If so, that's insane.

Well, someone over there obviously thinks it's better. FS2K shipped the same way.

Ben

Hi Rick,

>> Boy, that dust-up effect sure is cool. Love that. <<

He he, then try it over water

Regards and wishing you and yours a Happy New Year my friend.

James.