I see that VKB Gladiator NXT Evo comes with two features that might make it easier to fly helos--three sets of springs that can be swapped. Alternatively, you can fly without springs at all. Also, it has adjustable clutches/ dampeners that can help hold stick. Would like to hear of your experiences.

Right now I'm flying with Thrustmaster TCA sidestick (basically TM 16000M). I modded it by ziptying spring to reduce tension (return to center). It's works fine, and can do the job. I'm wondering if the VKB would be a worthwhile upgrade.

FYI, my home and setup really doesn't allow for something like a Puma.

Thank you.

I would like to share my experience regarding helicopter flight simulation which also surprised myself and I think might be interested for you as well.

End of November I attended the European Rotors 2023 exhibition in Madrid as exhibitor and during these days I had the opportunity to try most (I think all) helicopter flight simulators they had there on display. My main takeaway of these experiences is that VR/XR is key, motion is nice but vibration is absolute essential! I work with helicopter simulation for around 10 years now and we have high quality active controls, 210 degree dome projection, motion plattform and state of the art VR/XR gear but I never thought that something simple as vibration could add so much realism to helicopter simulation.

First thing I tried was already the best it could get: H125 from Loft Dynamics. It was just mind blowing! Certified full motion VR flight training device is just awsome. As we were there on the build-up day I had the chance to try it for around half an hour and we also simulated a hydraulic failure, which made flying really hard work. But what was most amazing was the simulation of different vibrations: main rotor vibration, blade tip vibration and at the end tail rotor gear vibration which seemed to come really from behind. This set the standard for the other simulator very high and none of the others could reach it.

Second simulator was a R22 simulator from Maestrale. They had a real R22 cockpit cell with blue screens in front of all windows. The real control hardware inside the cockpit was connected to force feedback actuators and visual simulation was done with two (!) Varjo XR-3 headsets. Through the cameras of the XR-3 you see the real cockpit interiour and via color keying the outside world was displayed instead of the blue screens outside the windows. Simulation was done by X-Plane 11. At first I was a little bit disappointed as it was not moving, despite the actuators I saw below the cockpit. But these actuators were just meant to move the controls and to shake the whole simulator and together with the sound on the headset and the visualization on the headset it was far better then expected!

https://maestrale.aero/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/sim22_a.jpg

Next was also an XR simulator but on a 6 DoF plattform. To be honest, this was so bad, that I won't mention the company as I know, they can do it better. First, the motion plattform was tuned very badly and yes, I know, as we have the same plattform (Brunner Motion 1000). Second, the mixed reality mask around the real display was just so badly aligned and always lost tracking, that it was no fun to fly. And at last the visual simulation was despite the really good headset (Varjo XR-3) of rather low quality and bad resolution.

The last two simulators were build by Entrol and hardware wise quite similar: Fixed cockpit rigs on linear vibration actuators. The first was a H145 flightmodel with mixed reality headset (Varjo XR-3) and the other one was a Bell 429 (I think) in a micro LED dome setup. And again: although the simulation was not perfect the vibration added far more realism to the flight experience than the motion of the simulator before. And they also explained how the vibration actuators were set up: in each corner of the rig was an air spring (pneumatic cylinder) and a linear actuator in parallel. Depending on the weight (equipment and pilot) the air pressure in the cylinder is adjusted so that the rig is level and there is no load on the linear actuator which then just has to add the high frequency vibration without the need to carry the complete load. That was quite a simple setup and I think it should be possible to build something like that also on a small budget for a setup at home.

On the left you can see the pneumatic cylinder and on the right the haptic feedback actuator made by D-BOX. As our motion plattform is probably not fast enough to simulate vibrations maybe we will add vibration actuators between the seat and the plattform.

Feel free to add comments and ask questions.

I am restarting my heli carrer on x-plane 12 in vr, since MSSF2024 is way to unrealistic in my opinion.

Currently I am using the MOZA AB9 with a 20mm stick extension. Does anyone fly helicopters with such a force feedback base? If so, would you mind sharing profiles?

Thanks,

Andreas

A feeling that I cannot continue to use all the hardware has been confirmed!

Installing x-plane went without a hitch, but it didn't recognize my ava base and F A 18C Hornet stick and my Turtle Beach Velocity One foot rudder

The Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog was recognized just fine, but I still have to test my Honeycomb Bravo Throttle Quadrant.

The foot rudder was the biggest problem because microsoft has ended all support for the latest drivers for windows 10!

I have now ordered the Virpil Controls R1 Falcon Rudder Pedals, because I can't fly helicopters without foot control, and I've bought many of them.

Setting up the graphics card wasn't easy either, but now almost everything works as before!

I'm going to buy a digital license for x-plane again just to be safe, I hope all helicopters and planes will work in Linux too, so fingers crossed

This is my first post after years of "silence", so to say. I startet a topic back in 2009 with my first attempt in creating a UH-60 collective. (archived topic) Then my teenage years startet and sim flying wasn't that interesting anymore. Now that I'm significant older and those years of partying ended (and I startet to get crazy about sim flying again), I wanted to finish this old project.

Since then technology in 3D printing got better and affordable and as an engineer my daily tool is CAD drawing, I was able to put my vision to reality (or virtual reality as it's not printed yet)

So I thought I might share my work with you guys.

I will try to update on this project if people are interested, but be lenient as I have a lot of work to do besides this project.

Let me know what you think.

J

Really, really, really like the PumaX not only because it makes the sim flight experience very realistic (i.e. learned the secret to mastering the R22 is tiny and steady control inputs), BUT when I'm done w/ a sim session,... its easy to fold down the 'pitch collective' stick (so the whole setup takes less storage space)

The vast majority of the time the 'pitch collective' stick is folded down because I actually have to 'work' on other stuff that pays the bills, AND brings me to the question,... does having the 'pitch collective' stick is folded down harm the 'Hall Effect' sensor???

Basically have not adjusted anything for about two years now,... but this long 3 day weekend have been playing around much more (have to make up for the past two weeks of no XP12 use)

Anyway the controls in the R22 seemed a bit off from what I was use to,... so decide to "Reset to Defaults for PFT-PUMA" and recalibrate everything,...

The problem I have is the pitch now isn't at all very sensitive!!! Basically OFF 'is full aft stick' AND ON 'is full forward stick,... in the fold down position'

And am convinced my Hall Effect sensor somehow was adversely effected by folding down the 'pitch collective' stick (so the whole setup takes less storage space)

Pro Flight Trainer LLC

Basically no long can fly the R22 because the normal amount of forward control PumaX stick, isn't enough to rotate the sim R22 rotor blade disk for forward flight (basically confirmed this by watching what happens when I have an outside perspective).

Any thoughts???

Once mapped the switch will turn on/off the Search/Spot light.

From there you use the search light hat switch to deploy, aim and retract the light; whatever you want to call it.

Please note the hat switch does not do anything if the SL switch is not in the ON position.

If you are looking for a mid priced solution for your UH-1 Collective need let me invite your attention to MaxFlightStick

I installed the X-Trident 412 version for Xplane 12. I am not able to assign my Saitek throttles to the 412's throttles.

It works fine on the Xplane 11 version but on Xplane 12, I have to move the throttles on the collective with the mouse.

Otherwise, the helicopter works fine.

Even allowing hardware throttles or not doesn't change anything.

Log (2).txt

I want to connect both my Puma and my Thrustmaster setups to my Mac, M1 Studio. If I assign "Roll" to the Puma for the Cyclic, I have to disconnect the Thrustmaster Joystick or it gets confused.

I tried to create a profile for Helicopters and a separate profile for Airbus and assigned the appropriate profile (either Helicopter or Airbus) but that alone does not work. It still gets confused. Unplugging the Joystick allows the Puma to use "Roll" o.k., or unplugging the Puma allows the Thrustmaster Joystick to use "Roll" o.k., but if they are both plugged in by usb, the confusion happens.

Is this me, is this a Mac thing, is this an X-Plane limitation?

Any help would be appreciated...

does anybody knows which DataRef I have to write the collective input to when I get the input e.g. via network instead directly from a joystick?

We use Brunner helicopter controls here in our simulators (rotorsim.de EC135) and I would like to read the controls position via network and feed them directly into X-Plane instead of using their plugin. One reason for this is that I want to be able to use the internal autopilot and write the trim position back to the stick so that it moves when the autopilot is engaged. For heading, pitch and roll I will use the sim/joystick/yoke_*_ratio DataRefs and the correspondig overrides to write them. But for collective I only found sim/multiplayer/controls/engine_prop_request while moving the collective axis on the joystick. But this is already a derived variable and the cockpit animation does not work with that (wouldn't be a problem). Additionally it is also no a ratio (with a range from -1 to 1 like normal joystick inputs) but a value ranging from 0 to 17.29999 (for whatever reason..). Does anybody has an idea which DataRef I have to use?

Cheers,
HellG

These are pedals costing several euros and my dream is Virpil or at least VKB but I need to save money for cyclic and collective first. I only have TM TCA Pack Airbus Edition + TFRP Rudders. This is obviously a terrible helicopter tragedy. Modifying the pedals helps a bit.

I started playing with helicopters a week ago. Previously I used only A 319/320/321/340 Toliss for two years. The TM kit was sufficient.

I am attaching a short video of the "improvement".  

Works surprisingly...I won't say well...but better than exception...

Like more than 10 years ago I tried the same with Saitek Throttle Quadrant... don't think worth it and then only fly anything on a "airplane throttle" configuration... (and for a long time even left stick and right throttle)

Getting more involved with heli with VR and 12.1(huge VR performance improvement). this is what I tried now....

Quite a lot mistake when doing subconsciousness adjustment, try to "push" it when need more power.... But few hours in, it's noticeablely less likely.

I think I'll try this config for a while before I can find some sub-100USD kit or got time and energy to DIY one...

anyone tried to calibrate the new AVA base by TM? Does not work for me, can't calibrate the axis. Does it need to be supported by Laminar???

Regards

Andreas

when I was looking for reviews on using a better setup to fly helicopters on X-Plane (now 12) I couldn't find anything relevant to flying on the iMac which was helpful ... so here you go:

I decided to get the Thrustmaster T.Flight kit, which includes the joystick, throttle quadrant and rudder pedals. In short - works like a charm. Setup was a simple plug & calibrate & fly process. X-Plane 12 immediately recognized the hardware. Currently I am playing around with the response curves to get to my perfect setup - all very docile and easy. Most of the hardware I looked at only listed Windows as the supported operating systems (this one also on XBox) and not Mac. Their websites also mostly state "MacOS not supported"). Well, I decided to take the leap and I am very happy I did. 

I am using a iMac M1 (2021), MAC OS Ventura and X-Plane. I fly mostly the wonderful Helicopters from CowanSim (Hughes 500E, Bell 206 B3 and H125) and am very happy with it. (Looking forward to the X-Plane 12 versions of the Bell 222 now anxiously).

Up next is a VR Headset - and the same problem there .. hard to find any usable reviews. So, if you are flying X-PLane on a iMac using a VR Headset - please share your setup !!! Thanks.

I'm in the market for a new set of helicopter controls. So far I've been using CH products which have served me well, but I'd like something more realistic.

Besides the Pro flight trainer puma, I found the max flight stick website, which features a "Huey 3.0" setup, with Hall sensors (better than the puma's pot sensors?), and "5 x Custom pistons provide realistic feeling for all control inputs".

There's a facebook page of this company with some comments on it, but no real in-depth review anywhere. I see that a previous post on the max flight stick on this forum has remained unanswered.

Is there anyone here who uses a max flight stick cyclic, throttle, rudder pedal setup, and would you please share your impressions? It looks high quality but I'd like to hear some opinions before spending that amount of money.

Regards  

William.