The addition of a yoke with throttle quadrant changes
EVERYTHING about flying the sim. It's just...more
It's just...more real.

My own el-cheapo joystick has been beaten back into submission and is
working again, at least as well as it had been before (which is not all
that well). But since I'm mostly doing IFR work, the throttle is less
important than the (navigation) radios. I set up the trigger on my yoke
to be "more power" and another button to be "less power". The other two
buttons I've assigned to trim. I leave most of the other geegaws alone
(though I do put the wheels up and down with the mouse) because it takes
too much to (say) mouse over to the carb heat, watch for the + sign,
click it, check that it moved (which it ususally doesn't), try dragging
it (and find I'm dragging the entire window), click it again and find
now it's a - sign and I went the wrong way... meanwhile I'm not scanning.

So yes, I agree that a control quadrant adds a lot to realism and I'll
consider it for my wife.

However, =my= big bugaboo is the &*%%^# radios.

Missed approach: GUBER intersection via GXK VOR 239 radial...

Let's see, there's only one VOR/ILS head so I have to switch frequencies
and twist the knob. mouse over to the little icon and click to display
the radio stack (now I can't see the needles). Mouse over and click the
swap button (I preset the freq, imagine if I hadn't), mouse over and
click to monitor the ID, click to hide the stack, mouse over to the OBS
and try to get it to display the + sign, click and wait, watching the
dial go the wrong way. Dammit. Mouse over a little to the left, there
it's a - sign. Click and hold while the OBS slowly comes to the proper
indication.

By this time I've probably crashed, and the %*^& ID is still bleeping in
my ear.

What do you do for nav radio realism? It would make a world of
difference to have a tuning/turning knob on the yoke!

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.