aaron886

I'm a professional pilot, but I choose not to name my employer on the internet. Ironically, I was discussing this a couple days ago with a friend who also happens to be a Rhino driver here in the US. I think what's really happening here is that you aren't reading my posts or understanding them. The Super Hornet's stick is of dual-jointed construction, each joint providing movement in one axis. The two joints are not even co-located. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/Pretzel/IMGP1152.jpg) "...stick feel is provided by two feel-spring assemblies and two eddy current dampers. The feel spring assemblies provide a linear stick force versus stick displacement gradient in each axis." (A1-F18EA-NFM-200) Two separate springs providing X and Y tension. This does not imply there is a noticeable sticking point when crossing axis center. (Unlike the incessant friction/sticktion in the Warthog's mechanism.) In fact, all it does is ensure that tension in one axis is not affected by tension in another. With the Warthog... With a real stick, that does not happen.

Skate, is AMD paying you? :D

I assume that's directed at me. The Rhino's stick has completely separated axes of tension. One in pitch, and a second one in roll. I may have not been clear, but the picture in my last post was. A good stick like the Hornet's has separate axes of tension. That does not mean they "feel" separated. The transition between axes is still smooth. The Warthog has tension applied radially, in all directions, instead of in the two axes of control. If that does not make sense, I can clarify further, but you are wrong. The HOTAS Warthog is not a superior simulation of real flight controls, especially not for the Hornet. I think you would be surprised by the feel of a stick in a real jet, it's nothing like the Warthog! :) Sorry, I only wanted to make sure it is understood that the Warthog's design is an engineering compromise, not a superior or realistic solution. I agree that it doesn't make it unusable, but I do think that it would be hard to build a cam design that did not outperform the Warthog for reasons stated. That's why I look forward to putting my Warthog grip on a VKB gimbal! Accurate description of the reason engineers don't design real aircraft that way. People seem very quick to defend what they paid 3-400 USD for. Who'd have thought? :D

Received mine a couple days ago. They do look great, the clamps are very high quality and they seriously do not budge an inch. You get great flexibility to set up your stick as a center stick or side stick, and I can finally sit at a comfortable distance from my pedals and have lots of desk open for things like the Rift sensor and Thrustmaster MFDs. I wonder if the Warthog plus a short extension will be too tall to rest my arm on my leg, even with the height fully lowered, but I've seen others doing it. Very nice product, and finally my desk can be both a normal person's desk and a flight simulator super-nerd desk at the same time. :thumbup: Minor complaints, there are a few nicks in the corners of my units, presumably from the transit to the US, and the cut edges of my mounting plates are not very smooth. The packaging is good for the mounting plates, but the main mounts may need more padding. Honestly, my biggest complaint is the lack of an included hex key of a sufficiently large size for the height adjustment bolts! If that's my most serious complaint, you know these are nice, but it would definitely help since this product caters best to those who want to buy-and-fly, not buy more tools. Overall, solid product that I am very pleased to own. This is a huge improvement in ergonomics without the designing and building. It just works.

Best of luck! I do sense an aspect of this that makes it seem unrealistic, but the fact that you addressed the unruly masses with "enjoy the free show" honestly makes me think you understand that and might just pull it off. :)

Seriously? Ugh, that's too bad about the Reds (and all the rest.) We live in a risk-averse world!

What's more, it doesn't describe the method of the test. I've seen real military aviators in desktop-type flight simulators struggling with the screen field of view and toy-ish flight controls. I've also watched DCS AI eliminate real military aviators... does that mean ED is creating SkyNet?!

Argh, wish I had this option when I ordered. Those look awesome.

You don't see a roller cam in a real aircraft's flight controls used in this way either, it's just the most efficient way to reproduce a similar feel in a smaller package. (Not just a nicer feel.) In real life, things get much more complicated and engineered, with bobweights and feel springs and even hydraulic feedback. It takes up a lot of space. My experience in military flight simulators with sticks does not match yours, then. The vast majority of stick aircraft, especially fighter aircraft with centersticks or anything not fly-by-wire, have control axes separated. A fly-by-wire sidestick is pretty much the one exception where you might see it. Consider this: any aircraft with direct mechanical linkage/reversion is rigged this way. It's difficult to reliably connect cables and push-rods any other way. (Usually looks like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/Pretzel/IMGP1152.jpg) I'm guessing the simulator you were in was Airbus... check it out, separate axes there, too: http://www.berkelaarmrt.com/images/gallery/AirbusSidesticks/gallery/DSC01767.jpg I'm not saying it will feel stiff or "clicky." That would be bad. That's what Saitek and Thrustmaster get you. A precision-milled cam does not, even though it might appear that it would! My Viper RX pedals from Slaw have a flawless center that's only barely noticeable. It's a huge improvement over CH's stiff center or Saitek's mushy one. The problem is the creation of a precise stick force gradient. With a ball joint, your options quickly become directed toward radial tension, instead of axial tension. That means if I deflect half left-stick and then move the stick through the full pitch range, I'll have a sloppy pitch response and inconsistent roll tension. That's what the TM Warthog does. Look, I know it's not that serious. I just want the best I can get! hasangb isn't wrong, price becomes a serious driver. But if it's not, don't bother with Thrustmaster and Saitek. :D If you're serious about PC flight sims for long enough, you'll start getting fed up with bad controls. I'm looking forward to trading out my Warthog for something from VKB, even though I'll probably keep the Warthog grip for the layout.

Backwards. It is more realistic. Nobody builds a real aircraft with a ball joint for the stick. The problem is that Saitek and Thrustmaster own the sim flight control market and prefer cheap solutions to quality ones. Also explains why it's like the other sticks you've used...

So what you're saying is... nothing. :huh: There was never a chance of this happening, you just wanted too badly to believe there was.

No freaking out here. I just received word that mine have shipped by DHL, so maybe a little longer than usual but I've been too busy to notice. Can't wait to try them out, I'll let you all know how they are!

Not supported. It's been discussed on this forum in a few places. Hopefully ED will consider it.

Wow, that's amazing work. Beautiful internals, hats off to him! How much will that cost me? :D

Thanks, I had trouble finding that before also!

That's a nice thought, I'm not sure how you could implement that easily though. Makes me wonder if VKB could design their next line with something like these internally: http://www.walmart.com/ip/43989241?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227032384060&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=63410633912&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=127091064992&veh=sem For what it's worth, you can/will mostly adapt to that underdamped response. I built a huge metal center stick with a nearly frictionless motorcycle universal joint and a bunch of springs... same effect. At first it felt incredibly unnatural, but eventually I adapted and wouldn't notice until someone else flew with my stick. Not an ideal problem but better than the sticky center of the TMWH, for example.

Nice try Vladimir Putin! :D

Orion makes a huge difference for me. That said, finger tracking still isn't perfect due to occlusion. It would need a second camera looking from off-axis to sort that out. For what it costs, Leap is VERY impressive. Flyinside's integration proved to me that it has serious potential, but integration has to be tight. npole... why so cryptic? You make me think you're breaking agreements by posting like that. :huh:

I agree with Sokol. The Warthog is just a very complete solution. You will be happy with a complete HOTAS, and the Gunfighter base will be a welcome upgrade.

Jar, can you please make a post without taking a jab at people who aren't happy with Oculus. :doh: Mad Dog - Derek's list really has every decent title I know of, but if you browse Steam you can find some others. At the top of any Steam Store page, hover over Games and choose Virtual Reality. Right underneath the title "Browsing" are two filters applied, limiting the search to Rift and Vive titles. Just kill the Vive filter if you only have the Rift, like me.

I hear ya, I'm waiting for word, too. Those VKB pedals look really nice, just have to decide if you need toebrakes. (I know I couldn't go without them, but honestly in most modern flight sims you don't need differential braking.) @hansangb - I've never owned MFGs but I know everyone likes them. They're not Slaw but they're solid and well-priced!

Absolutely. The Warthog's "ball and socket" mechanism is atrocious. It's an inexcusably bad design choice, but the engineers at TM are interested in keeping costs down, not making the most precise movement. It's very easy to use a cheap, accurate, Hall sensor and then claim that your stick is accurate, but honestly none of the sensor precision matters if you deal with friction problems. Unless you get a one in a million unit that is smoother than the rest, you will not be able to make small, precise adjustments. I have tried the full disassembly, polishing, and re-greasing, and I still have problems with my Warthog. The other ugly side of TM's chosen mechanic is a bad force gradient. The strongest centering forces are experienced just as the stick is moved from center, and there is no perceptible increase in force required as the stick is deflected further. This means your movements about center are going to be too coarse and will not result in precise flying. The ideal profile is a light but noticeable center, with near-linearly increasing stick force required as the stick is deflected. It makes sense that a desired increase in performance should require an increase in pilot effort. (This is how real airplanes are designed.) Saitek's sticks have similarly bad design, using a "spring and plate" design that results in similar problems. (Although not as robust as TM's Warthog.) Both Saitek and the TM use a single vertical helical spring not aligned with any control axis. This will always result in a poor force distribution. In the good 'ol days, everyone made their stick with two springs, one for each axis. VKB, on the other hand, uses a "cam and roller" design that produces smooth increases in tension, with a noticeable but unobtrusive center. This, in my opinion, is your holy grail of joystick mechanisms. The cam surface can be cut however is needed to provide the desired tension gradient and account for nonlinear strain applied by the spring. The ball bearing rollers ensure that friction is never a problem. The only issue here is that it's so smooth, that sometimes when built at large scales it can result in natural oscillating tendency that can cause pilot-induced oscillation. In a desktop joystick? No problem. Slaw also uses cam and roller designs to produce what are unarguably the best simulator rudder pedals out there. I just got my pair of RX Vipers, and they are incredible. You can see the main axis cam quite clearly here: https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/12474033_462686760596334_578325387947551813_o.jpg and a toebrake cam here: https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/12829384_456226454575698_304441426036835786_o.jpg. To get the ideal performance from these pedals, he leaves the option to mount a motorcycle steering damper to absorb springy oscillations. Springs being what they are, it's just the natural consequence of having near-frictionless movement. I can go on and on obviously, but the short answer is... ultimate setup would be a VKB joystick, Slaw Device rudder pedals, and the HOTAS Warthog throttle (until something without sloppy plastic arms comes up.)

The VKB sticks have light years better internal mechanism, but unfortunately they will never match the immediate upgrade that the warthog brings to your whole HOTAS. Having a VKB stick with crappy Saitek throttle would be like wearing an Armani suit with $2 flip-flops

Cool. Sounds definitely like it's an issue with resolution change then as Skate said! There are far too many track bugs in DCS, hopefully ED will revamp the system as part of the recent engine/core updates.

Gotcha. Did you try watching them in the Rift?