Flight sim controllers: Yokes, sticks, HOTAS

The Game Room
1

We last had a similar thread about this 10-20 years ago: yoke vs stick

But that was more about design tradeoffs in real-world aircraft, things like legroom and panel space.

In the sim & gaming world, where they’re all just USB controllers, is there any particular reason to choose one over the other?

I grew up playing flight sims with a simple Logitech joystick, whose throttle was just a tiny lever on the side. Twisting the base controls the rudder and yaw.

I also tried a HOTAS setup briefly, but all that really seemed to do is take up desk space with an unnecessarily large throttle, which made sharp turns more difficult.

Then there’s yokes. I’ve never used one, but do they control roll when you turn them (like a car steering wheel), pitch when you pull up or push down, and yaw… would probably need separate rudder pedals, or?

I guess I’m mostly wondering about how they translate input to control surfaces. Are yokes less “sensitive” and twitchy, making them better suited for large aircraft and slow careful turns, as opposed to dogfighting and aerobatics?

Or is there some other reason why both persist in the sim world? Is it just to model after real world aircraft?

2

I spend a lot of time in MS Flight Simulator, though my simulator days go back to Sublogic. Since I’m now retired, I can clutter up my desk a bit more than when I was working from home.

For my primary flight controller I don’t use a yoke, even though I am almost always flying IRL yoke-controlled aircraft; I use a Logitech “Airbus” stick, which controls roll and pitch, but can also be twisted to control yaw like pedals. It also comes with about a dozen switches, plus a slider for throttle. The main advantage for me in using the stick is it saves a tremendous amount of space; my PC is not dedicated to FS, so moving a yoke in and out of the space would be cumbersome.

I also have a Honeycomb Bravo that can be configured many ways; it has six levers, and mine are currently configured for a twin engine aircraft: throttles, plus for turboprops it has levers for propeller speed/pitch, and for piston aircraft, levers for mixture. It also has 7 on/off switches (lights, parking brake, whatever you want), plus a flaps switch. And…a rotary switch for setting altitude, VS rate, heading, etc. All customizable, if you’re willing to spend the time.

3

The primary difference between budget and high-end sticks is the type of gimbal used. Budget sticks will universally use cup-and-ball designs, which causes a lot of friction, has a lot of play, and has a large dead spot. Fine for quick action games like Star Wars: Squadrons or Ace Combat but MSFS is going to be a bad experience. Better than a standard game controller, but not that much. High-end sticks will use a cam and spring design. The cued up section of this video explains the differences in detail:

https://youtu.be/ZFRZx4PNM-U?si=ZVCqFsXeq8ph_rmL&t=93

4

Is there any particular reason why (you tend to fly with yokes IRL)? Do the yokes give you greater precision by requiring more input movement to adjust the control surfaces, so it’s less “twitchy” than a stick? Or?

I’ve mostly only played arcade sims. What would you use the independent engine throttles for? Is it for maneuvering more sharply into turns, or when would you want one engine lower power than the others?

I had no idea. I’ve used the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro all my life and loved it, having owned several versions of it. But you’re right, the dead spot is quite large and it’s not always easy to make smaller, subtle adjustments.

But it looks like that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the fancy sticks available today, especially those dual-stick HOSAS setups. I don’t quite understand how that works… would the left stick, mounted sideways or diagonally, be similar to a WSAD keyboard for “strafing”, and then you’d use the twist rudder to move up and down (in space sims)? Hmm, interesting.

And thank you so much for that video! It’s really great. There’s a 2025 version too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z54NHzy_Gc

I’m also intrigued by the force feedback sticks from Moza. Force feedback sticks used to be common when I was a kid (and they were pretty cheap back then), but at that time I found them more distracting than helpful, whipping the stick to and fro and interfering with my ability to actually control the plane. I wonder if the technology has improved now?

The VKB Gladiator seems like a good mid-level stick with the “proper” kind of gimbal. It comes in space, F-14, and WW2 variants though, and I’m not quite sure why you’d choose one over the other… different button and switch mappings? One thing I’m not quite sure is what a “mini stick” is or why you’d ever need four hat switches. I understand having one lets you look around the cockpit easier, but what good is four of them? Adjusting shield allocations? Flaps and things?

5

Only desk space. Yokes naturally would be positioned between you and your primary monitor. But since my PC is used for multiple things, I would have to constantly install then store the yoke. Sure, only 2-3 minutes each time, so not a big deal, but there is my problem of where to store the yoke when not in use.

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Most GA aircraft (Cessna, Piper, etc) have yokes – Maybe because aircraft makers thought that was an easier transition from driving cars? – though most you also want to use rudder pedals for coordinated turns which is nothing like car pedals so…

Brian

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Thanks, all.

I ended up getting a VKB Gladiator.

The Moza A6 force feedback stick was very tempting, but $399 + $90 shipping + possible tariffs is a bit daunting. Maybe if it ever reaches our resellers here. It’s quite a bit fancier than my old MS Sidewinder from the 90s, back in the Jane’s days.

Excited to get back into sims again. Eyeing the A-10s in DCS World and Warthunder. The brrrrrt would’ve been fun with force feedback, but probably real tiring after a few minutes :slight_smile:

8

I have the WinWing clone of the Gladiator. (Yeah, I know but VKB doesn’t have Canadian distribution so it’s like $500 to import vs $150) and it seems pretty solid. My main complaint is most programs don’t recognize it by default and flight sims have too many buttons to map.

Ace Combat 8 just got announced too. Should be a good time, despite the baffling subtitle. I keep forgetting to spend the $7 on Falcon 4 to play Falcon BMS. That may be the most transformative mod I’ve ever seen for a game.

9

The stick arrived over the weekend, and I had a lot of fun trying it out in Ace Combat, DCS World, Warthunder, and MSFS 2024! It feels quite substantial in the hand, the axes feel great, and the buttons are quite ergonomic. It’s a high-quality piece of kit.

One thing I didn’t quite understand is why the yaw axis (twisting the joystick) seems to have some sort of “rubber-banding” effect that causes the plane to yaw back and forth for 3-5 seconds. Like if I yaw to the left and then recenter the stick, I can see (on the external camera) the rudder return to center, but then the plane will yaw right a little bit, yaw left a little bit, etc. until finally stabilizing back to center.

As far as I can tell, this is a flight model thing… it happens in Warthunder and MSFS 2024, but not more arcadey games like Ace Combat. Is this how the aerodynamics work…? I don’t quite understand what is happening or why, but it certainly makes yawing quite a bit more difficult. And I don’t think it’s an input thing; the axis correctly returns to neutral immediately with no overshoot at all, but the plane keeps wobbling. Strange…

On another note, I also found this free, open source head tracker software that uses your webcam to determine where you’re looking: GitHub - opentrack/opentrack: Head tracking software for MS Windows, Linux, and Apple OSX

Some of the flight sims (like MSFS 2024) support it out of the box, and it makes for a really amazing experience. You can look down at the instruments (or move your head closer to get a better look), rotate your head to look out the windows, etc. It’s much more immersive than using the hat switch to look around, while still being substantially cheaper than a real VR headset. Highly recommended.

Yeah, this was a PAIN in the ass :frowning: With some of the more popular cheaper sticks, especially the Thrustmaster HOTAS One, most games include a profile for it by default. The Gladiator had no such luxury and I had to manually map every axis and button in every game. It takes forever.

Ace Combat 7 doesn’t even have a control editor so you have to manually edit an .INI file to get it working right. And different games will reverse the axes positively/negatively, so you have to manually invert them on a per-game basis. And MSFS2024 has different control profiles for flying fixed-wing/rotary/drones & quadcopters, so you have to repeat all the axes several tiems over…

Still, though, all in all it’s been a nice injection of (upgraded) nostalgia. On an ultrawide with real-time lighting and weather and raytracing… let’s just say it’s a noticeable improvement from the Microprose days :sweat_smile:

Can’t wait to try this with a Steam Frame someday.

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My guess would be it’s a sensitivity setting within the game that needs adjustment.

11

Hmm, I’ll do more tests later and try it again with the stick and also an Xbox controller and keyboard/mouse. Earlier I’ve already tried tweaking the sensitivity curves every which way to no avail. If it were truly an input issue, why would it be game- and aircraft-dependent? It seems to only affect some fixed-wing aircraft but not the quadcopters (in the same game), so I suspect it’s at least related to the flight model somehow… maybe not on purpose, i.e., maybe something in the default stick config is causing the rudder control to be misinterpreted…?

But that still doesn’t quite make sense, because from the external view at least, it looks like the rudder is behaving exactly as it should, being a 1:1 match to the twist axis with no delay or sensitivity issues.

I’ll try to take a video of it later.

12

It probably came bundled with software. That’s definitely something to check.