Our new CH yoke and rudder pedals arrived yesterday, and I had a chance
to hook 'em up today. What a difference -- they literally change
everything about "flying" a PC-based sim!

Until now, flying MS Flight Sim '04 using the big screen projector at
the hotel has been cool, but, well, unreal. A joystick -- even a
force-feedback stick, like we used -- is simply a bad compromise when
you're trying to fly the pattern in a Skyhawk. And steering on the
ground by twisting the joystick aggravated every pilot who tried it.
(Interestingly, non-pilots had no trouble with it at all...)

Out of the box, the yoke and pedals seem to be very high quality. The
pedals in particular have a heft to them that connotes quality, and
they move very smoothly, seemingly on ball bearings. Hooking them up
could not have been easier -- I plugged them into their own USB ports,
and they instantly worked as advertised. Plug & play really *has*
arrived!

I've set the program to default to SEATAC in a 172, so that was my
first attempt. To my surprise, everything worked precisely like in a
real plane, with the throttle, mixture, and flap controls all where
they belong. I did not need to make adjustments to any program
parameters -- each switch and rocker just worked from the get-go.
Finally, to my delight, the rudder pedals rocked forward (and the
program understood this), providing toe brakes EXACTLY like in the
plane. (I wasn't expecting this at all...)

My first circuit around the pattern was amazing, after years of flying
with a joystick. Steering on the ground was 100% intuitive, and
everything felt perfectly normal and real, including slipping to land.
With a 104 inch screen and surround sound (the sub-woofer makes it
sound almost perfect), the illusion of reality was remarkable, and
darned-near perfect.

My A&P is welding up a "cockpit" from tubing, using the electrically
adjustable seat out of my Mustang (I just installed leather in the car,
which left me with a surplus seat) as the starting point, which will
make the experience even *more* realistic once we permanently install
the yoke and pedals. For now, however, clamping the yoke to a table is
working just fine.

If anyone has entertained the notion of doing something like this, I
can highly recommend it. The $179 I paid for both controls (that's
together, not apiece) is well worth it, as I believe that the flight
simulator experience is now truly "as real as it gets" outside of
actually flying an airplane. I can hardly wait for our next Movie
Night at the Inn to put the new equipment to the test!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"