Review: Komodo Simulations VBS ProAT Pedals

[FlyingHighAU]

First of all, I would like to make it clear that I’m in no way affiliated with Komodo Simulations.

One of my colleagues has been telling(gloating) me about his rudder pedals from Komodo for some time now, and was nice enough (and silly enough, does he really think I’m going to give these back?) to lend these pedals to me for the weekend. This review will be based on my experiences with them, which is about 8 total hours of flying in DCS World.

I’ve really been keen to get my hands (and feet!) on any Komodo products, and the reviews and media coverage of these is quite sparse.

 

Appearance and Design

I have to be honest and say that I’ve taken a look at the product images on the official site many times, so I thought I knew what to expect when seeing them in person.

 

 

 

My first impression was that they looked a lot smaller than what I had estimated by the photos online, with the base/control box where all of the sensors and hydraulics are stored, being only just bigger than my average sized palm. This impressed me as it doesn’t hog anywhere near as much foot space as other designs. I have had Logitech G940 pedals, Saitek Combat Pedals and currently I’m using CH Pro Pedals, all of which in comparison seem almost monstrous in both size, and design, compared to compact and sleek looking Komodo pedals. (the rubber floor plate is from the Obutto Ozone)

 

 

I find that when I’m not flying I normally move the other pedals out of my way to give myself some leg room, but this wasn’t necessary anymore.

 

Another thing I like about these is that they fit very well inside the narrow Obutto Ozone cockpit, and even though the bars where you place your feet are wider than the cockpit, they are still able to fully move to the maximum and minimum positions – something which I was not able to do with the Saitek Combat Pedals (hence moving to the narrower CH Pro Pedals).

 

 

They are made almost entirely from aluminium which has had a black powder coating applied, which feels very smooth, and thick. The foot rests/grips themselves have some kind of hard and durable plastic on them with the brand name inscription for extra grip, similar to that of what is done in the Huey. The black is nicely contrasted with some silver bolts and joints, which feel as solid as they look.

The fact that the design is so unobtrusive would allow these to be mounted even underneath a false floor inside a home cockpit with only the pedals exposed (again Huey style).

 

 

 

Set up

I guess these days most peripheral installation is as easy as plugging USB cable in, and these are no different.

 

There is, however, a small caveat with such a small base, and that is these pedals must be hard mounted to something – an old bit of floor board or thin plank etc. This is so that they can be used sturdily and stop them from sliding around. Luckily for me, my colleague happens to also have an Obutto cockpit, so it was just a matter of trading the foot plates with his pedals already attached. Another thing I should mention is that, you will also want to have quite a smooth surface for your heels to slide on – I used a bit of ugly cardboard as the Obutto floor plate is rubbered was much too grippie on my feet/shoes. Your heels only need to slide when going into those rare extreme rudder positions, but without a smooth surface I found it very hard to control these comfortably.

 

Software installation was not required, and all I had to do was plug in the USB cable, and Windows 8.1 installed some kind of device driver automatically within a few seconds.

 

Inside DCS the pedals appeared in the controls options just as any other controller would. It was just a matter of clearing the column of all of the automatically assigned axis settings, and then setting the rudder control to the x-axis for each of my aircraft.

Because I was so keen on trying these out, I completely forgot to add a dead zone or set a curve like I’m normally used to, and I didn’t realise this until much later when I realised that I didn’t even need do either – this is the first time I’ve used a controller, especially rudder pedals, where no curve was required for me to fly accurately.

 

 

 

Probably the best feature of these pedals is that they don’t have a spring, but instead use a hydraulic mechanism to move, and therefore they do not automatically re-centre. I will go into this later, but in this means that you will need to turn Rudder Trim off, on all applicable aircraft in order to use these as intended.

 

Rotary Wing Flying

UH-1H Huey

The first aircraft I tried was of course the Huey. I figured without any autopilots and stability systems, I’d be able to get a real feel for how these pedals work. I launched the Free Flight Instant Action Huey mission, which placed me inside an unarmed civilian Huey, ready to take off on the runway. (I didn’t want the rockets and miniguns making the Huey front heavy, just yet).

 

I’m at my best inside the very easy to fly A-10C, that was the module that got me into DCS World in the first place. In terms of piloting/flying skill required to fly the lazy A-10C vs the constant minor inputs in the Huey – they are almost polar opposites. I’ve had the Huey since it’s beta release and normally I’m only just able to get the Huey to do what I want it to do – it’s normally quite a frustrating experience for me, having to fight the CH Pedals and the TM Warthog HOTAS every step of the way. Even though I have an extension for the stick, and have removed the main spring on the stick, and I have put in some much stronger springs into the CH pedals (great for planes), but even still it is a struggle to fly the Huey when doing anything apart from cruising at speed. I still have fun in it, but that fine sense of control just isn’t there compared to how I feel in the A-10C.

 

My typical take off in the Huey goes something like this – move the throttle slowly forward until the chopper starts to yaw to the right, give it some rudder to compensate, oops too much and now I’m spinning to quickly to the left and need to give some right rudder to swing it back – and I end up swinging back and forth for a while until I finally get to a centre point which is good enough for a forwards take off.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised when the above didn’t happen. Actually, I was more than surprised, I was amazed. The action of the hydraulic mechanism is so smooth, and the sensitivity so accurate I was almost unaware that I was moving my feet. Controlling these pedals was as natural as catching a ball – it was an unconscious processes, and suddenly I was yawing like a pro, with my feet predicting the torque of the main blade and my feet automatically compensating. For the first time in flying the Huey, I was able to take off in a controlled manner and I was able to keep the line markings on the runway centred as I flew low and slow, before speeding up to a safe lifting speed. (All the while my feet subtly transitioning from left rudder to neutral to right rudder to keep the chassis looking forwards).

 

Normally landing for me is also just as hairy as take-off, possibly even more so with the ever present danger for getting myself into a vortex ring state, but again with my mind freed by not having to consciously move the rudder pedals, landing was a pleasant experience.

 

After that I got a little cocky, landing onto of the ATC tower without breaking a sweat

 

Following some train tracks with the gun sight almost glued to the centre of them,

 

 

as well as harassing motorists by following at low speed.

 

 

 

Getting overly confident now, I went onto some target practice, and I found that I was able to hold the gun sight on targets for longer, and from further way – which is always a good thing since this allowed me to get more bullets onto the target from a safer distance. Rockets were now also hitting closer to where I wanted, allow for some single rocket pair hits, instead of my usual area of affect rocket spam. Flying in DCS is always rewarding when you finally get a hang of something after a few weeks of practice, but with these pedals I gained several months of accuracy practice within a few hours.

 

 

Now for the ultimate test – the cargo pick up. Hovering the Huey is challenging, very low hovering is normally quite manageable as the ground effect cushioning effect tends to help me a bit, so I can stay in the general area. Hovering above the ground effect for me is typically a no go, taking up to 10 minutes for hard work for me to hook on some cargo. Well, there wasn’t as much of an improvement here as I expected, I guess this kind of hovering requires fine stick and collective input more than fine rudder control – I was able to keep my heading easily, but I was still doing the pendulum thing. Perhaps I need to test the Komodo Simulations Cyclic and Collective too (feel free to send them to me for a review if you read this Komodos!).

 

 

Mi-8 Hip

Next I tested the Mi-8, which is probably my least flown aircraft, simply because I’m not usually able to hit a single thing with the fixed weapon stations combined with the weight and slow yet smooth response of the aircraft. And currently there isn’t a whole lot of other things to do yet with this module in terms of cargo delivery. My experience was quite similar to the Huey. Again I was able to do a nice and smooth hover taxi and take off, and I was at least able to get some rounds onto the targets in this heavy helo, followed by an accurate landing onto a marked area at Sochi. Again much like the Huey, with my mind not occupied with fighting to main rotor torque I was able to concentrate on my speed and decent rates and not getting into a vortex ring state.

 

Ka-50 Black Shark

Time to hit the shooting range in the Black Shark – what a blast! I was expecting that the pedals wouldn’t make so much difference here, since the stability/autopilot systems in this attack helo do a lot of work to keep you in the air, but it was much the opposite, I felt like I had more control of the Ka-50, and now the stability systems were just giving me that extra bit of smoothness. For the first time ever I felt like I was flying a helicopter, whereas normally I feel like I fly the shark in a quite rigid or robotic way due to the trimming system – with my usual controls, I’m not flying, I’m commanding the trim system. Well not anymore!

 

Unguided rockets hitting more or less where expected, and I even had reasonable success at using the cannon in fixed position firing mode.

 

 

 

When it came to hovering – who needs to use Hover Mode and Auto-Turn-To-Target anymore!

 

 

I found it very easy to slip and slide around and very quickly turn to my desired heading, thanks to the smoothness and accuracy of the VBS pedals. I can best describe it as being able to control the rate and amount of turn in a linear and predicable way (I’m sure the Shark’s autopilot helps me a bit too) and this allowed me to concentrate on using the HMS to acquire targets while my feet faced me as needed very very quickly. Those stationary trucks didn’t stand a chance :) . I realised that now I wasn’t reliant on the easy kill guided Vihkr missiles any more. I could finally make effective use of the Black Shark’s full arsenal.

(I’ve also just realised I’ve been calling these anti-torque pedals “rudder” pedals throughout the review, goes to show I’m generally a fixed winger!)

 

Fixed Wing

After all of the fun I had with the helo’s I wondered how well these pedals would work on my bread and butter aircraft – A-10C, F-15, Su-27. Of course the pedals are designed primarily for helicopters but I don’t think too many people would be using two different sets of pedals in their cockpit or home office / computer room, so I thought it was worthwhile to see how realistic it was to use the Komodo’s for everything.

I loaded up Instant Action Medium Winter for the A-10C. This took me a little while to get used to as I was used to my usual rudder input automatically re-centering, so my first pass onto the two helpless trucks with the GAU-8 wasn’t in its usual glory. It’s certainly not as natural, but still very smooth and accurate.

Landing the A-10C even in high winds was made a lot easier though, however after touch down, I panicked for a second trying to remember what the default key command was for the wheel brakes, as there are no foot brakes on the AT pedals (as you would expect).

Taxiing and formation flying the Su-27 was also considerably easier, again to do the smoothness and accuracy of the VBS ProAT pedals.

Edited April 25, 2015 by FlyingHighAU
Pictures Added

[FlyingHighAU]

Other Thoughts

No product is perfect, but the Komodo Simulations AT pedals come very close. I have some criticisms, and perhaps they might even be addressed in future versions (if you have a quick look on the Komodo Simulations Facebook page, you will see that some products get newer revisions every now and then).

 

If I was to buy these pedals to use for ½ and ½ for fixed and rotary wing I think it would be very helpful to have some kind of detachable recentering springs, which I can hook on and off when I wanted to do gun runs on ground targets. I could probably mod these in without too much trouble, but when you are paying for a premium product, you will think twice before taking to it with a drill or screw driver (it took me weeks of planning and research to remove the spring out of my TM Warthog) and you certainly don’t want to do anything to void the warranty.

 

I would also like to see some kind of adjustable tension / resistance knob. Initially I found the pedals a little light – perhaps what is what real AT pedals are like, I’m not sure, I’ve never touch the controls of any real aircraft. You do however get used to it very quickly. But still options are always nice to have, especially when people are used to wrestling the TM Warthog.

 

 

And of course being AT Helicopter pedals, there are no toe brakes, which for modern planes isn’t a big deal, but taxiing a WW2 plane would require some work arounds - E.g. Other controls to brake each wheel to turn the plane while on the airfield. Options are available such getting some of those $5 usb foot switches underneath, Or use a modifier key to turn the pedals into left/right brakes, but for people that want an authentic WW2 experience, then these probably aren’t what you would go for.

 

 

Conclusion

I will get straight to the point: If you are a rotorhead – these are a must have, without a doubt. The helo’s in DCS are such high fidelity, you don’t know what you are missing out on until you have controls that are equally high fidelity. The pedals move buttery smoothly you barely even know you are doing it. Using these is a similar experience to when you drive a car, you don’t even know you are turning the wheel to stay in the lane, it just happens subconsciously.

 

For fixed wing, well, they are just as accurate and smooth, however if you already have some spring’d rudder pedals it might take a bit of practice to get used to the VBS ProAT’s not recentering, but even still I found I was flying better once I did get used to it. If you have even one helo module, and mostly fly fixed wings, I would still consider these for the accuracy and precision– especially if you can mod some springs onto them.

 

There is also the price, and these aren’t cheap (I would say it’s a fair price though all considered), but I’d like to point out that the main difference between the Komodo Simulations pedals vs. the other pedals I’ve used (Saitek, CH Pro, Logitech) is that the Komodo’s don’t feel like a toy and it’s another step closer to the real thing, making the helicopter flying experience very much enjoyable. I think if you spend a lot of time in DCS, you might as well make it as enjoyable as possible. Also I’m not sure I was clear about the build quality – I see these lasting a life time. So over 10 or 20 years of flying in DCS, the cost becomes almost a moot point.

 

I’m not regular rotary wing pilot, but with DCS World 2 just around the corner, and a rumoured AH-1 or Mi-24 in the near future, I might just become a regular.

 

I find myself wondering how much fun it would be to explore the highly detailed grounds in the new maps of DCS World 2, low and slow, with the full complement of hand made Komodo controls.

 

Product Page : http://www.komodosimulations.co.uk/pedals.html

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2015 by FlyingHighAU
pictures added

[KomodoSim]

Hi FlyingHighAU,

 

Thanks for the great review, I will certainly look into your ideas for improving the ProAT Pedals, its great to have such detailed unbiased feedback.

 

BR

 

Rich

[FlyingHighAU]

Just wanted to add that I have had some feedback today from friends saying that an easy to mod in a centering effect would be to add a few strong rubber bands around the actual pedal bits - and no hard modifications required, and easy to take off / put on in 5 seconds. (as well as easily adjustable tension, just add another rubber band to make it stronger)

Edited April 28, 2015 by FlyingHighAU

[TomOnSteam]

Just wanted to add that I have had some feedback today

 

Thanks for the review! Man if they can put some kind of removable springs in these, then I will have to get a set. Then these would be perfect for both helo's and planes.

 

I like to fly the Russian planes which have a brake lever on the joystick so toe brakes aren't necessary for me.

 

But some kind of centering mechanism is a must for when I'm not flying helo's. (Removable so I can have the best of both worlds :P).

 

I don't like the MFG crosswinds because of how you have to put your whole foot on them - this may have been necessary in order to use the strength of your whole leg inside a WW2 fighter, but for everything else it makes little sense and seems like you would lose a lot of finesse (and finesse and precision is what you need for helicopters). And of course, the centering mechanism on the MFG's makes them less suitable for helicopters too.

[KomodoSim]

Hi Guys,

 

I'll look into this, with what I'm thinking it could be an easy mod for before or after purchase. So if anyone has already bought the Pedals they can easily add the springs in afterwards by undoing 4 bolts.

 

BR

 

Rich

[Rogue Trooper]

Without doubt there is definitely some interesting stuff coming out of Komodo, especially future releases.

I guess a proper collective design would be superb with its extended range of movement.

[hansangb]

And I'm ready to order the UH1 collective and cyclic as soon as Rich gives me the word that it's ready. On Facebook, it looks like it's 99% ready to go.

 

color me anxiously waiting!

hsb