FSX flying has been a mixed bunch of experiences lately. My rig for flight simming is quite good now, I almost have no performance problems, but the flight controls just plainly suck. I went through all kind of expensive Yokes (Saitek Pro etc) and different sticks, but I came to find that all these modern, highly advanced controllers tend to act up and have some serious incompatibilities.
Guess what? Right now, I'm using an old CH Yoke as yoke control, and an old CH Combat Stick as stick. CH Rudder pedals for the rudder (which I don't like very much, but they work). Joy came into flight simming again, for these are simple controls without all these backlit displays, multiple switch gimmicks all these other useless features that work or don't. The only Saitek stuff I still have is a double throttle quadrant, which is quite relieable and looks good (and can be split for single engine operation).
But I'm still not satisfied. Therefore I resurrected a very old project - remember my old original helo flight stick I have? Well, I want to make my own flight stick control now. I bought one of Leo Bodnars USB interfaces with the high 12 bit resolution, hall sensors and neodyme magnets for a magnetic x-y input, and a ball joint from a car (I'm proud of that idea :-) ) to mount the stick on. Simple, sturdy and free of tolerances, and easily made at home (well mostly) without sophisticated tools - opposite to constructing a complex gimbal mechanism.
Another thing that I always missed were good and large trimming wheels. Everyone who has flown aircraft knows that during normal operations, these are mostly flown via the trimming, so I will also address this in the project. The only thing that is still to be done is a decent 6dof view control, but that will follow.
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