Flight Simulator Controls

If you are serious about your flight simulator hobby then owning the best flight simulator probably won’t be enough. You will probably want to be flying with the best flight simulator controls. You certainly won’t get a realistic flying experience from using just a mouse and keyboard. You will want to make your flying experience feel as though it’s more realistic than just a game.

Joysticks used to be very common in the early days of home computer gaming. But the introduction of the mouse and game pad controllers pretty much killed them off. Joysticks simply don’t offer the best gaming experience. But they are still around for use in flight simulators as no other controller can create the same sense of realism as a joystick. It takes the flying experience to a whole new level of realism in the same way a steering wheel controller can enhance a driving game.

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Flight simulator controls such as joysticks are pretty much tailor made for flight simulations as they aren’t usually used by gamers anymore. As a result the joysticks will usually have been designed with flight simulator enthusiasts in mind. They can vary quite a lot in price with the more expensive models having a smoother feel that makes the simulation feel more responsive and realistic.

Joysticks vary with the number of buttons that they have. The more buttons available on the joystick the less you will have to use your computer keyboard. Lets face it, keyboards don’t provide the most realistic flying experience. The less functions you need to assign to the keyboard the better. One feature that the more expensive joysticks often have is force-feedback. This is where the joysticks becomes stiffer to push in response to adverse weather for instance in the simulation. This simulates the reduced responsiveness of the aircraft to adverse flying conditions or as result of you pulling off tricky maneuvers.

If you want to keep away from your keyboard and mouse then you should think about adding a set of throttles and pedals to your flight simulator controls. The joystick allows you to steer and the throttle and pedals control the power and yaw. The throttles will also provide addtional buttons which can be programmed. You should be able to have enough buttons available to immerse yourself completely in the flying experience.

It doesn’t matter how realistic your flight simulator software is. It’s still going to feel like a computer program if you are stuck at your keyboard because you haven’t invested in some proper flight simulator controls.