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Find your way into flight simulator cockpit construction

6.6 Flight controls

The Microsoft Flight Simulator allows the control of several so called "axis" by means of potentio meters. Examples of these axis are: joystick (combination), yoke (Combination), pedals, throttle, mixture, etc. The amount of axis that you can connect more or less depends on your game card or the device (joystick). A standard game port has four analog pins to which a potentiometer can be connected. The game card translates the charging time of a capacitor (determined by the size of an externally connected resistor) to a value in a register. The driver for the game port translates this value to the game. In principle multiple game ports can be used. On the site The Stick Works special support for game devices is given.

There are various suppliers that offer ready made flight controls, see the supplier section. It is also possible to make the flight controls yourself, There are many examples on the various sites (see section 2). For parts you can also have a look at sites like Aircraft Spruce. To give you a start: Norbert Bosch, Project J, Mikkila, Trim device, Yoke.

Additionally there are very instructive tutorials on FlightSim or Digital Flight (the "Tech section / Cockpits&Controls").

Potentiometers can be obtained from many online sources. A nice place to start your quest is PotentioMeters.

A special area of interest is the use of flight controls with feedback. Using devices from e.g. Logitec the Microsoft Flight Simulator generates feedback. This can even be enhanced using a utility as FS Force that will allow for additional types of force feedback during flight.

Besides buying force feedback of the shelf you can create your own feedback. Doing this will give you more options to simulate real life behavior. It is important to make a distinction between vibration like effects (formally called tactile feedback e.g. turbulence, canon shots) and effects that simulate force (formally called haptic feedback, caused by speed and g- forces). With clasic aircrafts, like the DC-3, haptic feedback is very important, the higher the speed the more force is needed to handle the yoke. The most basic variant is to create contra force with a bungee, the more you pull the higher the force. A more advanced approach is to stretch the bungee with a device like a linear stepper motor depending on the speed of the aircraft: low speed becomes low force and high speed becomes high force. Similar issues play a role in aircrafts like the F-16 where more force is needed on the joystick when speed increases (also called actuated stick control). I could not find a real example of a site describing the implementation of feedback for flight controls for flight simulator cockpits, but it is a topic that occurs on a regular basis in one of the forums or newsgroups.

If you have higher than average ambitions with respect to flight controls, take a look at Universal Flight. They offer a stick shaker used in airliners for stall warnings.