[Davros]

Force sensing stick
http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/x65f.html

but you are missing out a hell of a lot by not having a ForceFeedback stick

[z64555]

Also, keep in mind that change of directions provided by such a joystick is instant, but the control surface movement isn't.

It's better to have an input device that's more responsive than what it is controlling, than to have the inverse. Simply put, if your craft/control surfaces are perfectly capable of changing from full left/down to full right/up within an instant, but your controller takes 1 second to signal such a change, your at a tactical disadvantage.

Instead, the limiting factor should be the algorithm that's handling the control system, and in fact it a simple PID system can do the synchronizing quite well (given that it's tuned properly).

I feel more comfortable with having a traditional joystick which I can "feel".

but you are missing out a hell of a lot by not having a ForceFeedback stick

You'd still feel the amount of force your applying to the stick, just as you would a traditional one... however dynamo-sticks lose the positional feedback needed to determine where the limits are. This is both an advantage and a curse of these things: Advantage in the sense that the stick's input limits can be adjusted on-the-fly, curse in the sense that there's currently no way of telling where these limits are without something like a HUD gauge.

Perhaps if the two technologies were combined, say, use the dynamometers when the stick is centered and then use the potentiometers when the stick's outside their deadzones?

[Nuke]

force feedback is nice and all but it throws off your aim. and to be fair most aircraft with a fly by wire system limit feedback to vibration only. if you are into ww2 sims, or any sim where aircraft being simulated has hard linkages to the stick (i think the a-10 has this too but im not sure), then it makes sense, as any shudder in the control surfaces will reverberate all the way to your stick and pedals. but when your stick is hooked into a fly by wire system that hard linkage is missing and you can only recieve the feedback the fly by wire system decides to give you. for an aircraft it makes sense that the feedback not interfere with control input. so the feedback is limited to a rumbler. it even makes less sense in a space sim, where stick merely controls rcs thrusters and inertia wheels which dont generate any return.

on the other had simulators have a major feedback disadvantage. because feedback for a pilot also comes from their feel of inertia. as the aircraft pitches and rolls they can junda feel what the plane is doing. and an astronaut can feel accelerations and rotations in the spacecraft. there is no way to do that in a simulation without a gimbal platform. force feedback can kinda be a cheap substitute for this, but i still come back to my original point. it throws off your aim.

[jr2]

A-10 has hydraulic system with cable backup for certain systems.  And most non-cutting edge aircraft use some form of hydraulic (IIRC, fly-by-wire became mainstream with the newer aircraft, I'm not sure which, but maybe like the 767 and definitely the 777 / A380 etc.. before it was a testbed in IIRC the 757 or somesuch, I really don't remember, but Google is your friend).

[Nuke]

aye, though google often results in a wall of useless text. too many ****tards putting up websites on every mistyped address, and dynamically generated webpages designed to be google traps. i just remember the a-10 being discribed as an old skool stick and rudder plane. you probibly get a little bit of tactile feedback in a hydraulic system though. not yank the stick out of your hand feedback, but you probibly do feel a little bit of directional resistance when the control surfaces (and by extension the hydraulic pumps) are under a lot of stress.

[jr2]

Yeah, you get some feedback from your brakes, no?  (ABS, problems in the brake system, etc) That's hydraulic, which the e-brake being a cable backup hooked to the rear brakes.

[bd77]

Personally, I use the joystick. But everytime before I play FS2 I calibrate it first. And like Nuke mentioned before this joysticks takes some practice before you could master it. I know that after slamming into a bulk freighter one too many times when playing X-Wing (that's was my first ever joystick-based game). Ah, fun times.

[bfobar]

I have taken to using the thumb mouse on the throttle stick of my x52 for most of my shooting and only use the joystick for gross maneuvering in a dogfight.

[Nuke]

you do realize that a trackpoint mouse like that is effectively a small joystick, right?

[bfobar]

Yes, but I can set it to a different (very low) sensitivity for accurate shooting since it is treated as a mouse, and then keep the main stick at full range for dog fighting.

[Nuke]

thing i like about the ch software is you are allowed to change your sensitivity and gain curve on the fly with some script. so i could just as easily have a button to change my stick sensitivity for an accuracy mode. ive just never really had a use for such a thing in freespace (though my ksp profile uses something like it for atmospheric and space flight modes), since im so good with the stick.

[SaltyWaffles]

I think the Fly-by-wire pressure system was addressed by giving the stick a little bit of play (room to maneuver the stick), so that pilots would still feel like they were moving the stick, but that the fine control came from the pressure/force they placed on it.