Psifire

Yeah, I noticed that too. As soon as he flips the AFCS switch, Damper Off turns off on his warning panel without going through the BIT. Made me wonder if the AFCS BIT was a late addition.

Hey, I could be wrong, I'm going off internet information after all, but it was internet information from confirmed fighter pilots. What sources do you have that contradict this?

Considering how touchy this BIT is, and the fact that you are able to get through the initial BIT (something I can only do if I unassign X and Y axis from my Joystick,) my guess would be this is just an issue with the aircraft systems as simulated rather than the FFB forces. Just a guess though.

This is the way.

To each his own, and to be perfectly honest, it's neither historically accurate nor advantageous to cold start a fast jet. The ground crew does it IRL. None of the mil pilots who fly DCS cold start their jets as far as I can tell because they didn't cold start their jets in the military. I never flew for the military, but I did fly light aircraft for a bit, and I had to both preflight, and cold start my (rented) 172 every time I flew it. For me a flight starts with a parked cold and dark aircraft, and ends with a parked cold and dark aircraft, preferably in the same spot. Mi-8 I believe is the hardest start sequence of any of the Helos, and is pretty high up there for any of the aircraft. It's the only thing I can think of where you need to jump to three different positions to cold start it in VR. Everything is in awkward positions. If you have it mapped to keyboard I'm guessing it's not the hardest, but in VR that thing is a beast and I love it (my neck on the other hand hates it.) You should consider cold starting each jet every once in a blue moon at least IMO. If you don't you aren't getting to enjoy the wonderful sound track that accompanies the unique start up sequence for each of these aircraft. It's the fidelity of the details that makes them such special models, and even the electric jets have their own idiosyncratic behaviors. Do fast alignments of course, but yeah, start them up every once in a while at least. Unless you just find it boring, in which case skip it. We do this for fun after all.

Not sure what that means, but whatever works for you! With the Sidewinder you can move the stick to any position and then just let it go, and it will stay there (provided you haven't covered the sensor) since it only applies return to center forces when the sensor is covered. Not something I use often, but it can be useful as a sort of defacto auto trimmer in certain circumstances. You can just put the joystick into the position you want it to hold, and release quickly. It's a feature very unique to the Sidewinder, and again, I've had this particular joystick for over 25 years. I'm very used to everything it can do.

Gotta second both of these sentiments, and also this FF Mig-29A is pretty damn fun to fly once you get past the annoyance of the Autopilot BIT. Really that is just an issue if you are one of us weirdos who absolutely insists on cold starting your aircraft for every flight.

Nah, I use the "release joystick in strange position" trick often enough that I would miss it if covered the sensor. Aside from this issue with the BIT test, I have never seen any reason to modify, change, or replace my joystick. Definitely never noticed a deadzone issue, but that might be because I have not had experience with newer, more precise joysticks, or just that I've been using this one for so long I'm used to it. I can tell you that I enjoy using unguided weapons, and I am able to employ what I consider to be an incredible amount of precision when doing so. I recently replaced my Thrustmaster TWCS throttle because it wasn't precise enough so I do pay attention to such things.

I'm guessing your Sidewinder was one of the cheap versions. The good ones seem pretty bullet proof. Wait, are you saying it will complete the AFCS Autopilot BIT with the sensor taped over or disabled?

I did not know that. Do you know what this means practically? Are there effects that can't be simulated by the Direct X drivers, or is this an advantage? Being supported by Direct X explains why it has such wide software adoption, but if it's a limited toolset to work with then it might cause it to have lower fidelity FFB. If the newer sticks have higher fidelity FFB effects that might be the motivation I need to finally retire the old girl...

Really you had one die on you? Was it a Red Button Version? Mine has been bulletproof, and it has tens of thousands of hours on it at this point. The twist died within years of me getting it, but I don't like twist axis on joysticks anyway. I'd be willing to buy a replacement and retire it (strongly considered the Moza,) but there is really no replacement for it. If you want desktop Force Feedback without having to mount your controller, your choices are Red Button Sidewinder FFB, or a bunch of far inferior options that are just as old. I've heard some talk on forums about this being because of a patent troll, but I'm guessing the Sidewinder was just a weird product. It's also the reason that FFB is so widely supported in software, so you are welcome.

As someone who has been using FFB since before LOMAC was a thing I totally agree. To be clear the Sidewinder is true Force Feedback (not a rumble pad), and has fairly strong stick mover forces (not compared to the Moza or the Rhino of course, but pretty strong) they just put in a weird feature where it has a sensor on the joystick and you have to be touching it or it won't apply any forces, not even return to center. It can be pulling really hard and you release it and it just stays where you released it. While watching the stick move would be cool, I fly in VR now anyway, and the real advantage of FFB is being able to feel control surface feedback. I honestly can't imagine flying without that anymore. Being a Microsoft product, one of the great advantages of the Sidewinder has been that it works with everything. This is the first time I've had an issue with it's FFB functions on a game that supports FFB, so it made it past 25 years before a developer failed to support it properly. That's a hell of a run.

Yeah, sorry, I was not being very precise. It's not every FFB joystick. The Sidewinder requires that you have your hand on the stick for it to apply forces, so it can't move on it's own like the Rhino can. Also, I'm sure with the Rhino this is a very cool looking process so I get why they included it (your joystick moves the same way the one in the virtual aircraft moves during the test, correct?) I just wish they had included a check box in the settings to allow you to disable joystick inputs during Autopilot BIT so that it works with my weird, old, awesome 90s joystick that I bought new at Best Buy more than 25 years ago. (And other similarly obscure FFB equiped joysticks.)

If you get a chance, try this process and see if it works. After Aekran Test, Engine Start, and Fast Alignment, and with the Ground Power disconnected: Clear controller mappings for Pitch and Roll from all controllers. Flip the AFCS switch and allow the BIT to complete (Takes about a minute. Stops a couple of times during the test) Wait until Damper Off warning shuts off. Remap the Pitch and Roll Axis. This isn't a permanent solution, but it's the best I have so far.

This is an issue with every FFB joystick I'm guessing. I have a Sidewinder FFB2 and have the same issue. My custom cold start checklist currently has the following entries after Ground Power Off: "Unassign Joystick from X and Y Axis" "Turn On AFCS and wait for BIT to finish" "Reassign Joystick to X and Y Axis" Works every time if I do it this way (and get all the other steps correct of course,) fails every time if I do anything else.

This would indicate you are having a different issue entirely. If you unassign the Pitch and Roll Axis from all controllers and you are still getting failures in the BIT your problem isn't being caused by inadvertent inputs from a FFB joystick. Unfortunately the BIT is rather picky to begin with and can fail for a number of reasons. It fails if you haven't switched off ground power when you try to run it for instance.

I'm not using keyboard commands. I have trim mapped to the hat on my Sidewinder FFB. I fixed both of these issues. The force feedback issue was fixed by swapping the Axis in the FFB Tune. Nose down authority was largely a result of the flight regime I was in.

That helps with the FFB forces being applied wrong, but not with this issue. This happens when you are trying to cold start the aircraft and you do the BIT for the autopilot. The game detects joystick inputs and fails because in the real aircraft you can't move the stick during this process. The only way to get it through the Autopilot BIT successfully is to erase the axis assignments for the joystick then remap it when it's done.

Just went in and tested, and I can complete the AFCS test and get the Damper warning light to go off if I unassign my Sidewinder FFB2 from the pitch and roll axis, so definitely being caused by the Sidewinder. Wouldn't this test fail with any controller that was getting a tiny bit of almost imperceptable axis jitter as well? Yeah, need an option to disable controller inputs during BIT.

This is the same issue that is posted with the Moza AB9 and a few other FF joysticks, but the solutions for the AB9 doesn't work for the Sidewinder so I think we need a new topic. Symptoms: Autopilot BIT fails when a Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick is plugged in and Force Feedback is enabled. Ekran BIT was successfully completed, and AFCS switch was activated after alignment and startup. Hands are off the stick. BIT starts and then all buttons on autopilot panel immediately start flashing green when it detects input. I've followed several different suggested procedures for startup, and all result in the same thing. I get to the Autopilot BIT, it starts and then immediately fails, I'm guessing because it detects joystick input from the sidewinder. Is it Reproduceable?: Yes Solved by disabling Force Feedback, but of course we need a better solution than that. I can post a track if you need one, but it seems pretty clear that having an option to disable control inputs during autopilot BIT would solve a ton of problems for people with FFB joysticks. I'm a bit shocked it never occured to you that this would be an issue. Edited because I was using the wrong Abbreviations. I just got the control labels mixed up, it is correct now.

Anyone have a solution for the Sidweinder FFB2? It's having the same issue, but the solutions above don't work.

I'm having the same issue with my Sidewinder FFB2. If I figure it out I'll post it here.

Yeah, I must be getting old or something. I setup all of my aircraft and I absolutely did not remember having to do this for each one. It has been awhile since I bought an aircraft module, so I must have just forgotten. Checked all my aircraft, and there were a couple that didn't have it checked, and sure enough the forces were not correct on them. I can't believe I didn't notice. Thanks for the fix, and if you ever need a copy of the correct dinput8.dll to fix the zoom stutter let me know.

I swear I've setup over 20 aircraft and never run into this before. You were correct, this fixed my FF issue. Trimmer is working correctly now. Edit: After a bit more flight testing this fixed a myriad of problems. Every time I think I have mastered all the ins and outs of controller setup, I learn something new.

I've flown just about everything with simulated wings (and put over 100 hours on the unsimulated kind.) Most aircraft of this era have reduced nose down authority to limit their ability to push negative Gs. The Mig-29 as simulated has almost zero nose down authority. It's super weak, way weaker than I would expect. As simulated it is weak enough that I will have to adjust to a very unusual flight characteristic in order to master the aircraft rather than just relying on skills built up from other aircraft. I don't mind doing that of course, as long as it is correct for the aircraft and not a bug.