• Hi
    I know there aren't loads of force feedback users and I know it isn't high on your list but I just wanted to say don't forget us!
    There are still a good number of ffb users who would like support. Solutions for other sims exist, fsforce for fsx and prepared and dcs natively so it is still something that is out there.
    Being able to trim an aircraft properly by feel is a big deal especially GA or gliders and I regularly enjoy this in other platforms. With your excellent flight model this would be fantastic!
    So please, don't neglect us force feedback users for too long!
    Cheers
    Chris

  • Are there many FFB joystick options out there? I know in racing sims FFB wheels are pretty common, and FFB programming in race sims is getting incredibly sophisticated, but I don't get the impression it's the same/as popular in flight sims.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • I would like to join this message hoping that IPACS will consider implementing feedback support in this amazing sim.
    Regarding the question above, there are some really good FFB yokes for immersive flying, unfortunately they are not affordable for most desktop pilots. However this is the age of 3D printers so here is something I was working on for the past year and again really hope for FFB support in Aerofly.

    This yoke was designed with community in mind and "ease of build" so anyone will be able to replicate one in the mater of days and fraction of the cost compared to other options.
    It utilizes electronics from legendary Microsoft Sidewinder FFB2, parts available on eBay and 3D printed components.
    The good thing about Sidewinder joystick is it's native support in most games and when there isn't one, the joystick behave like a standard spring loaded device.
    Since IPACS released theirs SDK I approached author of FS Force program Russel Dirks asking if he would like to expand his software to Aerofly. Well he wasn't against the idea but he needs to see more interest as the programming takes time and same goes for IPACS I suppose.
    So, if you people wanna have a good Force Feedback Yoke and don't want to spend £1500, RAISE YOUR VOICE HERE !!

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • John, you are right, there aren't loads of options but as Jay pointed out there are some. That was the point of my original post really, it's not at the forefront of domestic simming so people tend to think it doesn't exist any more. There are a handful of good force feedback yokes out there and the good old sidewinder ffb2 and Logitech 940 plus custom or home made efforts too. The fact that other sims still support ffb shows they think there is enough demand to include it and I just wanted to remind people that even though it isn't common place it is still alive and kicking.
    Great looking yoke there Jay! Definitely interested in that. By the way, I saw your post on the fsforce forums, I'll add my voice too.

    Chris

  • I would love one of these - please share info on how to build it and how to obtain the parts without a 3d printer...unless you'd like to sell a kit of the extra bits we need.

  • Jay - amazing piece of kit there mate, very impressive.

    I'm actually surprised by the lack of FFB flight controllers, the difference it makes in driving sims is amazing, and I can't imagine any racing sim not having FFB support, it's such a fundamental part of the experience. The amount of effort involved in hooking up the physics to the FFB is incredible, but once it's all balanced, it elevates the whole experience to another level entirely. I think flight simmers are missing out a bit really.

    It will be interesting to see how this develops going forward.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • Thanks guys

    It is still "work in progress" so I will keep you updated as it goes.
    I do realize that not everyone have a 3D printer at home however there is a ton of online services to print your parts for you. I can only provide STL files needed for the print along with the list of parts available on ebay and some instructions of course.
    I am too very surprised that none of the big hardware companies didn't at least try to make one of these.. I mean Logitech has pretty good FFB wheels. How much development would it take to add another axis..?
    Well I'm not waiting any longer. DIY it is:)

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • Logitech with the G29 and Thrustmaster with the T300 both make really good quality and good value for money FFB wheels, so the tech is there already. Maybe it's because flight simming has been a bit quiet for a while as a gaming genre and a little bit of a niche. Hopefully a title like FS2 will make it a bit more accessible and popular with a wider audience. Project CARS has proven that a well thought out sim can have broad appeal, even on consoles, and has sold well over a million copies.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • I was also very surprised to see force feedback disappearing in modern joysticks. With the Logitech Force 3D Pro I have one of the last Force Feedback joysticks made by the company (the Logitech G940 being the other one that comes to mind). That the current top-of-the-line Thrustmaster joysticks don't have force feedback is difficult to comprehend...

    It would be very nice to have force feedback support in Aerofly FS 2. I guess it has become a chicen-and-egg problem, where the availability of force feedback joysticks would rise again only if flight sims support it (and vice versa). Perhaps if VR has a positive effect on the popularity of flight sims, people may wonder why we have such great force feedback in wheels but not in joysticks.

  • +1 for adding force feedback! Still have a Logitech G-940 and love my force feedback.

    Intel i-9 9900k @ 5.0 Ghz, EVGA 2080ti FTW3 11Gb, Corsair H115 PRO water cooler, Gigabyte Aorus Master motherboard, EVGA Super Nova 1000 watt G+ power supply, G.SKILL 64Gb ram @3800 MHz, HP EX 920 M.2 PCIe 3TB,Windows 10 Pro x64

  • Yes, there was a discussion about it already but many of you "real pilots" rejected that idea so that's why here is another one to gather people who like this feature and express our interest to third party devs like FS Force for example..

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • One of the concerns is also how to get force measurement data from the real world aircraft. In GA aircraft that is quite complicated already but you'd have to get into an airliner cockpit and actually measure the forces if you want to do it accurately... And some airplanes like the Corsair or P38 are quite rare, I don't think we will have any usable info to base a force feedback simulation onto. Sure we could make an educated guess and probably nobody would notice :D

  • Thanks for the link to "FS1", a forum section previously known as "FS" which is not visible on my iOS or Android mobiles anymore. Is there a way to view this normally or is it in an archieved record somewhere? I had an enquiry in here (FS2) about using FS/1 IPACS shop pay-planes inside the relatively new Steam FS1, unfortunately without solid advice. I'll search that forum now.
    Force feedback providing trim feel would be very nice. Speed and power changes could be much more natural. Rudder trim feedback in multi-engine planes would be really interesting.

  • Yeah I saw that but it seems to have been dismissed by a load of people who can't see the benefit of having control loading and got hung up on measuring and replicating actual forces accurately. This is pointless as each device is going to be different, just like each joystick or yoke has a spring feel that is slightly different. The important thing to have is force that behaves correctly. Why wouldn't you want to be able to trim by feel alone, just like you do in real life or feel the controls go mushy as speed decays. You shouldn't have ground bumps or brakes shudder or any of those things but you should have decent resistance variation with speed and a proper trim system.
    Some people in the thread seem to understand the ffb doesn't just mean a vibration or rumble effect though.
    Plus it was 5 years ago!
    And it was for a different sim!

    Ffb devices are actually a bit more plentiful these days. I wanted to show the devs that there is demand for it here.

    Chris

  • Hi Chris,

    well, as I mentioned in that old thread, there is nearly no consumer-hardware to simulate actual force feedback yet. We (me and other pilots in the thread) never said we don't want force feedback, we just want it to be as good as it can be.

    Real world control forces are quite complex. From my past - what? almost 9 years of flying gliders in the real world - I've noticed that the control forces needed are not really linear... especially on the elevator. I can name you a number of influences that all have to be taken into consideration that make the behavior very difficult to simulate: control deflection, angle of attack (also flow separation), impact pressure (compression effects at high speed - mach buffet), sideslip, airbrake position, propeller wash for current sideslip and angle of attack (hits different parts of the stabilizers), elevator trim position (both spring load and aerodynamically trimmed), mass-effects of the control surfaces, wing bending (control links bending), control surface twisting, friction, imperfections of the airplane (lose tape one side, thermal expansion effects, moisture of wood).
    And because of that I would like to measure the control forces first before I can really tell what is going on there. Sure there are probably a number of effects that can be faked easily. But actually getting it right and not ruining the experience for well trained real world pilots will require couple thousand hours of work. Airliners that have artifical force feedback like the B737, B747 and LJ45 (I think) are probably not as difficult, here the problem is gathering information.

    In a glider I think I can actually "sense" thermals through the stick by now. Its hard to describe but if you have enough experience and know exactly what response is coming from the airplane then you can filter out what is triggered by external factors. There are certain frequencies of turbulences in thermals for example that I can sense though the stick and seat. Tiny, "rounded" bumps tell me that the thermal won't be as strong, probably dying. Larger low frequency disturbancies in the air that actually start to bank the aircraft are more promising. And I am afraid that training with wrong force feedback could actually make me less sensitive to such effects.

    To be honest force feedback is a niche. The people writing here in the forums are just a fraction of all users and 99% of them are probably not willing to purchase an expensive joystick that has good force feedback. Its a good idea and would complement VR quite well, I just think there are more important topics that need covering first. Things that every user will benefit from.

    Cheers,
    Jan

  • Almost everything you list cannot be felt in a sim. Most of it comes through the airframe, seat, noises and g forces so there is no point trying to replicate everything you list. People get so hung up on trying to overcomplicate things when in actual fact most of what you say isnt felt through the stick anyway. A lot of those aren't even simulated in home sims anyway. The point of home force feedback is just to add a little bit of realism. If done properly you can have non linear forces. I do with my prepar3d set up. It makes gliding, ga and war birds so much more fun.
    To say home force feedback will dilute your pilot skills is a nonsense though. There are so many other factors as to why home sims are different from real flying that ffb is the least of your worries. I have been using ffb for years and had no issue with my years of sim time negatively affecting my ability to use a stick after a nearly 20 year break from gliding. 5 minutes in and it felt right.
    Stick position, pressure applied and forces applied should not be learned in a sim, they should be reactions to what the aircraft is doing at any given time. Home Simming is not training, it is fun and nothing more. It is so far removed in so many ways from what a real powered aircraft or glider feels like that it does not dilute a pilots skill and I think you are doing yourself a disservice if you think your home simulator can ruin you as a pilot.

    I agree that it shouldn't be high on the list. There are plenty more pressing things missing from fs2 than force feedback and some are biggies! I agree that it is a niche but it can be done to a reasonable level and has been done in other sims. If other devs are including it then there is obviously demand other than just a few of us here.
    This was never supposed to be an oh my god this is the most important feature that is missing thread! Merely a reminder that good ffb does exist out there and it doesn't need to be as complicated as some people make it out to be, mainly because the sims themselves don't actually model all those things anyway!

    Happy flying!
    Chris

  • I liked force feedback a lot in FSX. It's a shame that it's disappeared for flight simulation.
    For FSX there was an addon that made the experience more realistic but I preferred the original less realistic feedback more. It hasn't to be super realistic. It's just good to feel when you touch the runway or when your plane stalls. I don't understand why it's gone.

  • Thank you Chris, this is exactly what I wanted to say..

    Flight sims should be fun at first and specially with VR, force feedback is there to enrich your experience and immersion.
    I also agree with Jan at some point that there are more important subjects to be targeted first but guys.. Why reinvent the wheel again?
    We don't need to take away precious IPACS resources when there is already amazing piece of software doing lot more than we could expect from good FFB system.
    All it takes is your (+1) message to this forum: http://fs-force.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=617
    Russ Dirks is willing to convert his FS Force add-on to Aerofly platform if there is enough demand so please people.. Everybody using FFB joysticks and yokes, support this cause and let him know on the link above!!

    BTW I made a good progress on my FFB yoke and completely finished roll axis mechanics so it could be connected and tested with the sim. It feels very solid and smooth. Forces are also really good after I did some alternations to the gear ratio. Moving onto the pitch axis now which should be fairly simple. Hopefully I'll be fully testing soon:)

    Over and out
    Jay

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • Hey guys..

    I know this subject will probably bring some heat into the forum again:) however I wanted to share the fruits of two years development..

    The yoke is finally fully working so I shoot a little video just to get more people on board as this is "truly low cost solution" and it performs really well.

    If we only had Force Feedback support in AF2 ;)

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    Over and Out

    Jay

    Edited 9 times, last by Jay 737 (July 18, 2017 at 4:22 PM).