Declaring Emergency! Saitek Yoke

[Harry Basset]

Recently I have been mainly flying single engine,single seaters so have been using my Saitek AV8R joystick . I fancied a change to heavy piston transports so reverted to my Saitek yoke. Imagine my surprise when taking off in my Alphasim Caribou it proceeded into a loop! It didn't take me long to realise all was not well. Looking at the outside view showed that although the yoke was in its centred position full up elevator was being applied. This affects all aircraft. In the calibration window everything works as it should i.e. with the yoke centred the cross hairs are in the centre, has anyone else come across and solved this problem? I have removed and reinstalled the drivers.

[Tako_Kichi]

Have you tried unplugging the yoke and plugging it back in again? I have had problems with my X52 HOTAS in the past where it lost calibration and unplugging/re-plugging cured it every time.

[petermcleland]

One thing you might try is popping out into Spot view with SHFT+S and then moving the stick or yoke in a full circle. This should free off the controls and set all the control surfaces back to neutral...Confirm that the control surfaces now move normally with your yoke/stick movement then pop back into the cockpit and go flying...I don't know why it does this but I have had to free off my controls in the last five or six years in this manner after booting up the computer. No further action is required until the next boot up of the OS...usually tomorrow! :flying:

[nigelb]

Peter - that sounds like something should be running when you reboot but for some reason it isn't. Have you tried re-installing the software that came with the joystick/yoke. Are there any utilities that came with it that can be used to test all the buttons, axis movement, etc? If so what happens if you boot and then check it right away, before running FS?

On some rare occasions, I have thought my old Sidewinder has gone t*ts up - in FS one of the axis would stop responding, usually the rudder axis. As Larry noted, unplugging it and plugging it back in has always fixed it.

N²

[Harry Basset]

Good morning gentlemen
Thank you for the suggestions, I have tried them without curing my elevator problem. Pushing the yoke forward beyond the spring loaded neutral postion brings the elevators down but if I relax the yoke centres itself and I am back to full up elevator. I am wondering now if it is a mechanical fault inside the yoke housing which could be cured by moving a clamp on the yoke shaft so that the neutral shaft postion is aligned with neutral elevator. I seem to remember the CH yoke had a manual adjustment wheel to do just that.

[petermcleland]

Peter - that sounds like something should be running when you reboot but for some reason it isn't. Have you tried re-installing the software that came with the joystick/yoke. Are there any utilities that came with it that can be used to test all the buttons, axis movement, etc? If so what happens if you boot and then check it right away, before running FS?

On some rare occasions, I have thought my old Sidewinder has gone t*ts up - in FS one of the axis would stop responding, usually the rudder axis. As Larry noted, unplugging it and plugging it back in has always fixed it.

No Nigel, there is nothing wrong...It has been the same on the last three computers and the last two sticks...After first boot and entry to FS, the selected aircraft has full up and full right on its control surfaces. The moment the stick is moved a tiny fraction, the visible control surfaces flick immediately to those positions then as you move the stick further they latch to the stick position and remain correct and perfect till the machine is next booted. Lots of people have it...They are the ones on the forums that say their aircraft rushes off the the right the moment they open the throttle. All you need to do is check your full and free movement in the same way you would with a real aeroplane...So it doesn't bother me. 2 sticks, 3 Operating systems and 3 computers with FS98, FS 2000, FS2002 and FS2004...All the same so I consider it normal. :flying:

[forthbridge]

I did actually get this with the Sidewinder Joystick, and thought nothing of it - as Peter says a quick movement cycle seemed to do the trick.

My new Logitech has a very, very slight tendency to pull to Starboard, however a movement cycle before the off prevents this.

[SkippyBing]

I think the thing where you have to move the joystick around before it works properly started with USB joysticks and was a case of them self calibrating as it were, I may even have read that somewhere. I have found it doesn't matter if FS is running before doing a quick full and free on the joystick which would tally with that.

[nigelb]

Peter - I always do a full and free movement as soon as the aircraft has power out of habit so maybe that is why I haven't noticed any problem. I thought the people who mentioned rushing to the right on opening the throttle were in a single prop with a big torque effect. Three computers and two sticks? - hard to argue against that evidence!

Ah well, learn something new every day.