On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, David Megginson wrote:
> A home-computer joystick or yoke
> might have a little spring in it, but in general, it's going to be far
> too easy for the computer user to create an elevator deflection, and
> the plane's going to feel unstable.
>
> There are two solutions to this problem (other than building a full,
> force-feedback console). One is to exaggerate the coefficients to
> make the nose more stable than it should be, but that sort-of sucks.
> The better solution -- which I stole from Andy Ross -- is to square
> the joystick axes (preserving sign), so that small joystick movements
> are less sensitive than large ones:
[...]
> Now, the pilot will have to move the joystick 50% of the way just to
> get a 25% elevator deflection, and a 10% joystick deflection will
> result in only a 1% elevator deflection, so the plane will seem more
> stable. This is still far from perfect, but it's better.
Or, modelling the control column as having substantial mechanical
staying power, and treating the joystick input as the force applied to
move it rather than as the control column position.
I must admit I haven't yet looked into the code, and besides I've never
flown a real airplane so I can't comment on how actual control columns
feel.
I think MSFS98 models the control column as having infinite mechanical
staying power in the absence of force applied to it by the pilot, and I
happen to like the feel of it (of course, it also makes me lazy in
applying trim :-)
I may be off my rocker here; I'm not a pilot; rarely boot into Windows;
and I'm still dicking with the FreeBSD joystick interface to plib more
often than I'm flying B747's into the SF Bay :-)
(the good news is that the FreeBSD USB joystick interface is coming
along and works well with the CH Flightsim yoke -- hope to clean up the
code and submit it to the plib folks this weekend).
Cheers,
-- Bert
--
Bert Driehuis -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- +31-20-3116119
If the only tool you've got is an axe, every problem looks like fun!
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