How to simulate a joystick correctly (hardware)

[DogTailRed2]

Hi,

I have a saitek yoke which is great for flying aircraft with a spectacle type control column.
Has anyone managed to simulate correctly an aircraft joystick for use with joystick type aircraft.
The usual desk mounted joystick doesn't seem quite right especially when using rudder pedals. Something between the legs or there abouts would be better.
So how or what do you use for joystick flying and has anyone tried one between the legs ?

Dog.

[NigelC]

Ooooooerrr

[SkippyBing]

While attempting to avoid too much in the way of innuendo (in your endo etc. repeat to fade) after I started flying helicopters in real life I started placing the joystick between my legs as that replicated the hand/stick relationship as closely as I could. Bear in mind helicopter pilots like to have their forearm resting on their leg as it makes precision flying much easier as you just have to move your hand around without the rather tiring effort of holding your arm in the air at the same time. The one thing I would say is that after a while it gets a bit painful with a Saitek X-52 as the base is a bit on the large and square side! I'm toying with making some sort of mount for it down by my right hand side so I'll have a set up similar to the F-16, not totally representative but a lot more comfortable.

[Chris Trott]

Hovercontrol.com has several threads on their forums about making homemade cyclics and collectives. Many of these techniques can be used to also create "proper" positions for aircraft as well.

Flightsim.com's "Home Cockpit" section of their forum has several threads on the construction of home cockpits. Several of these and the sites they link to from those threads also have tutorials on how to fabricate joysticks and control yokes or modify existing joysticks for more "realistic" operations.