Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

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Nigel H-J
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Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Nigel H-J »

Received the yoke on Friday after ordering Wednesday so excellent customer service, did not do much as wife was poorly but on getting the chance to set up the yoke I had to change a few things on my desk, throttle quadrant had to go to my right side instead of left as the elevator trim switch is on the left hand side of the yoke. Now I have always been right handed when flying and the thought of now having to use my left hand to fly and right for the throttles, prop u/c et all did not inspire me much towards the yoke and began to think that maybe, with all the hype about the Honeycomb, I might have jumped into the deep end without so much as a thought of whether I was ambidextrous. :S

There are drivers for the Yoke which can be downloaded from the Honeycomb site for FSX and P3d but with X-Plane 11 no drivers are required. Speaking of drivers, when flying in FSX I did not use the driver and flew quite happily by just assigning Elevators, Ailerons as needed but more on that soon.

Firstly, on each aircraft I selected I had to calibrate the yoke (which makes sense) then I selected only a few buttons such as trim before taking my first flight and finding that flying left-handed was not too bad at all, in fact I began to enjoy it!! :lol: but the problem of control setup came right up and hit me when first took off and landed as it did not feel right. Cutting a long and boring fix short I just went to the Control Sensitivity Settings set pitch and roll fully left to fully linear then set Stability Augmentation fully to the right then into the main menu for controls and for pitch and roll went into the Add/Edit Response Curve set both roll and pitch to Linear, straight line no bows or creases. Worked a treat, when flaring I found just pulling back gently got me down really smoothly and flying, turning, climbing at these settings just made the experience that much better and more realistic.

Fired up FSX and I have FSUIPC installed but on selecting Just Flight VC10 I deleted the Aileron and Elevator Settings and re-applied them to FSUIPC. Remembering the settings in X-Plane I sent the controls to FSUIPC but did not put any curves in, left them fully linear. Found that with the VC10 using aileron my yoke appeared to move further than the VC10 yoke, that is to say when mine was 45deg the VC10 was at around 30deg but soon cought up when at 90deg, if I used the Honeycomb driver this may not have occurred but flew one circuit and rotation was brilliant, pulling back on the yoke there is quite a bit of tension on the travel and it made flying the VC10 even more enjoyable and landing, I sat there gently pulling back on the flare and began to wonder when the blasted thing would touch down. Super smooth landing, but that is the VC10 for you. Next up was the A2A Simulation Constellation. Now this is an aircraft that I have had problems with, trying to fly it with the Logitech Joystick was never a pleasure as no matter what my settings were it was a devil to fly smoothly, in fact got so fed up with it that I parked it in the hanger. Not so with the yoke, it was brilliant to fly, everything about the turns were slow and positive and now I have come to the conclusion that the type of controller you use can change the way flight simming really feels. BTW, Ricks 748 flies really well with this yoke. Just had to put that one in should any-one ask what CBF Aircraft are like with it. :lol:

What of my views? I really like this yoke but also have to question Honeycomb about why they have made a yoke around the Cessna 172!! :dunno:

There are many like me who have purchased this but probably don't fly the 172!! :wall: I feel that with all the switches that are labelled should really have been left unlabelled even though I will assign them to different switches, the elevator and aileron trim switches are double-pole types though can work independently so I just use one for elevator trim rather than having to use both of them........... probably not realistic but hey, it's only a sim I'm flying innit! :lol:

Hope this helps any-one who may be interested in this yoke and apologise about this review not being as other reviews found elsewhere but I just got a bit bored of tapping away here and not flying. :lol:

Regards
Nigel.
I used to be an optimist but with age I am now a grumpy old pessimist.

simondix
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by simondix »

Thanks for your thoughts. I will wait a bit before I purchase.
Simon

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Paul K
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Paul K »

So, Nigel...generally speaking, value for money ? How is the double desk-clamp arrangement, or are you using their micro-suction mat thing ?

My main concern at Cosford was the force required in the pitch axis, but you seem to be happy with it. Overall, I must say I did prefer the Fulcrum unit, but the Honeycomb one is a lot of yoke for the price. I hope it does well for them, given the investment required to get it started. They looked a bit tired at Cosford, maybe the jet lag and having to repeat the sales pitch to everyone who tried it out. They had an early version of the throttle quadrant too, and though still in need of some refining, it looked very promising, so that's your next item on the shopping list.

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Nigel H-J
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Nigel H-J »

So, Nigel...generally speaking, value for money ? How is the double desk-clamp arrangement, or are you using their micro-suction mat thing ?
Hi Paul, I would never make a reviewer would I!! :lol:

Is the Honeycomb value for money? I honestly have to say that for the price I paid which was £222.39 was just about right, the full advertised price of £245 is a bit much to be honest but then again, when you consider all of the switches with each one having 2 positions giving around 42 selections in all, including the hat switch, then that is quite impressive, how many yokes provide that amount? The desk clamp is very good and no movement when pulling fully back or forwards, have not tried the suction mat as not really needing to use it. If I was forced to pay the full amount then I would have done but only on the basis of the reviews I had watched on YouTube as to spend an extra £200 on the Fulcrum would be way out of my reach on a pension. The Honeycomb does what I consider a good job with full 90 deg roll and a bit of a disappointing one and a half inches (approx) from centre to fully forward so that is around 3 inches of full travel from stop to stop on the elevators though to be honest, when flying it feels a lot more and definitely a lot more than the Logitech Joystick I have. I would imagine that the Fulcrum and Yoko have a bit better elevator travel. On the subject of the pitch the Honeycomb does have quite a bit of tension on pitch and that is certainly evident when landing using one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttles especially when pulling back to near the stop!! :lol: Would have liked a bit of feel on the roll but having said that I am still very happy with it. One point I do have to make is that the site where I purchased the yoke from does offer a 14 day money back, here is what they say:
Returning orders without any hassle.
Of course, it is possible for a product not to meet your expectations. Because of that, returning the product to us is not a problem. Returning a product (or products) is possible within fourteen days after receipt (cancellation period).
We do not have a complicated return procedure, but we do distinguish between returns within the cancellation period and returns within the warranty period.
How long they will keep this price is anyones' guess. https://www.flightsimwebshop.co.uk/hone ... trols.html

Oh BTW, nearly forgot........the throttle quadrant they will soon release I would love to have it but again, money is the key factor on this and I already have the CH Throttle Quadrant which does the job for me and more than happy with it. My next item will be VR and am holding back until the Oculus Quest finger tracking is released to see how or if it works in X Plane and on other platforms.

Hope this has filled in some holes from my previous post.

Regards
Nigel.
I used to be an optimist but with age I am now a grumpy old pessimist.

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Paul K
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Paul K »

Nigel H-J wrote:
28 Nov 2019, 16:25
Hi Paul, I would never make a reviewer would I!! :lol:
:lol: :lol: You're doing fine., Nigel. Plenty of useful info there. :thumbsup:

chrispbits
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by chrispbits »

I've ordered the Gladiator II. Desk space rules out a yolk and throttle arrangement. I got the Gladiator for a good price but it's coming from the States and isn't the lightest joystick around so the postage is a bit eye watering :-O .

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Nigel H-J
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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Nigel H-J »

Hi Chris, you have a very good purchase with the Gladiator II, have watched videos of it even before deciding to change my Logitech and had that very much in mind as well as the Thrustmaster.

Let us know how you get on with it please.

Regards
Nigel.
I used to be an optimist but with age I am now a grumpy old pessimist.

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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by chrispbits »

Will do Nigel. It will be a while though as SWMBO has forbidden me from opening it before Christmas! :S

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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by Paul K »

chrispbits wrote:
29 Nov 2019, 13:41
Desk space rules out a yolk...
Could you not have moved the bacon and fried bread to one side ?

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Re: Honeycomb Yoke.....My Impression.

Post by chrispbits »

Now I've got egg on my face! :lol:

Well spotted Paul but it's yolks like that that will get you banned from our office.

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