Why does Hornet not use full forward stick travel?

[imacken]

Not sure if tis has been asked before, but why do I not see full travel of the stick in the forward direction?

If I look at the Controls Indicator, the forward bar is very short compared to the back bar, and the stick is fully forward at 50% travel.

In Axis Tune, the full travel shows from 0 to 100%.

This only occurs in the Hornet, no other module I have noticed.

Any ideas why this is?

[TimRobertsen]

Its uncomfortable for the pilot

Negative G's arent as funny as positive G's

Im guessing

[imacken]

Not sure if that's the reason. Why would it be different in the Hornet compared to any other module?  Also, why allow the physical stick to travel further than the game permits, bearing in mind the Axis Tune calibration allows full movement?

By all means restrict the forward movement, but surely it should be calibrated with the stick travel.

[TimRobertsen]

1 hour ago, imacken said:

Not sure if that's the reason. Why would it be different in the Hornet compared to any other module?  Also, why allow the physical stick to travel further than the game permits, bearing in mind the Axis Tune calibration allows full movement?

By all means restrict the forward movement, but surely it should be calibrated with the stick travel.

 

Well, if the Hornet's stick actually has less movement forward, because pilots simply dont need negative 9 g's  If ED then gave the joystick the full movement for the short forward, it would be less responsive; so to give it a more realistic feel they simply stopped the input at a certain point. Easy way to retain a 1:1 between forward and aft.

 

Again, Im just guessing

 

As for the other modules, I dont know, could be that they simply are different

Edited February 23 by TimRobertsen

[imacken]

Yep, what you say makes sense, but it doesn't explain why the Hornet and not other aircraft.  What is so unusual about the Hornet in this respect?

[kengou]

27 minutes ago, imacken said:

Yep, what you say makes sense, but it doesn't explain why the Hornet and not other aircraft.  What is so unusual about the Hornet in this respect?

Every airplane is different. The Hornet has unique fly by wire control laws. This must be how ED decided to model things to best represent the aircraft in their eyes.

[Svend_Dellepude]

If you trim for landing i think it uses more forward stick motion. Not sure though.

[HammerUK9]

1 hour ago, Svend_Dellepude said:

If you trim for landing i think it uses more forward stick motion. Not sure though.

 

It shouldn't, especially given only electronic trim has been implemented at the moment.

[AegisFX]

Pretty sure another jet like the 15C has a smaller forward range as well. With center mounted sticks, I assume it’s pilot comfort for not having to lean forward 

[HILOK]

well, technically you have control over more Gs when pulling than when pushing to the limit. so it could just be that the stick range reflects that.

[Sarge55]

IIRC the Mirage has a shorter forward throw as well.

[imacken]

6 hours ago, Sarge55 said:

IIRC the Mirage has a shorter forward throw as well.

No, the Mirage is 'normal' full travel.  It's only the Hornet and F-15C AFAICS.

 

All the logic given above is sound, but I would still love to know why these 2 aircraft are any different from all the others.

[TimRobertsen]

1 hour ago, imacken said:

No, the Mirage is 'normal' full travel.  It's only the Hornet and F-15C AFAICS.

 

All the logic given above is sound, but I would still love to know why these 2 aircraft are any different from all the others.

 

Wagner probably knows the answer to this; after all, he is the omniscient one

[jojo]

12 hours ago, imacken said:

No, the Mirage is 'normal' full travel.  It's only the Hornet and F-15C AFAICS.

 

All the logic given above is sound, but I would still love to know why these 2 aircraft are any different from all the others.

 

In real life, the Mirage 2000 stick travel forwards about 1/3 of backward movement: the allowed flight envelope is -3.2G/ +9.0G

So the stick displacement per G unit is equal in (the stick moves the same distance for +3G and -3G).

But in DCS M-2000C, you need full forward stick, when you try to perform inverted flight for instance, it feels weird, you need to move 3 time more to get the same pitch correction.

 

I think ED did the right thing with DCS Hornet.

[ampentium2]

On 2/24/2021 at 5:00 PM, imacken said:

No, the Mirage is 'normal' full travel.  It's only the Hornet and F-15C AFAICS.

 

All the logic given above is sound, but I would still love to know why these 2 aircraft are any different from all the others.

 

Based on my learning when trying to troubleshoot and setup force feedback settings on different aircraft in DCS I find that each aircraft control input are modeled differently, at least based on few aircraft that I have tested. I think I can try to explain this.

 

With ForceFeedback Eagles and Hornet are modeled with 0 stick input equals to neutral stick, however Flanker-D and A10-C Tank Killer does not, neutral stick position on aircraft is fedback to actual stick position so you have 1:1 stick control with ForceFeedback stick. Any attemp to center the stick (e.g by implementing centering spring) will cause the input translated as stick being pulled.

 

But, without ForceFeedback I can imagine this becomes a small trouble as there's no way you can do 1:1 stick input so it comes down to how each developer modeled their aircraft. Obviously they will have to do 0 input as neutral stick. As forward movement is usually limited on actual aircraft they will have to decide whether to follow 0-100% forward range at the cost of being less responsive or 0-30% forward range and ignore the rest while having more realistic response. And it just so happens ED decides to model the later for the Hornet (having said that, I have never noticed this behavior before; not because it never happened but I have never paid attention to this. I only assumed they do 0-100%).

 

Take it with a grain of salt, the only party who actually knows the actual reason is the developers.

[imacken]

All true.  However, I usually fly the Hornet with the stick hidden, so I did wonder quite often why nothing much was happening with forward movement.  It wasn't until I switched on ctrl-enter (for some reason) that I noticed the restriction in forward movement.

That explained a few things to me!

[ampentium2]

21 hours ago, imacken said:

All true.  However, I usually fly the Hornet with the stick hidden, so I did wonder quite often why nothing much was happening with forward movement.  It wasn't until I switched on ctrl-enter (for some reason) that I noticed the restriction in forward movement.

That explained a few things to me!

 

That's the funny thing... I've always use the ctrl-enter overlay but I've never noticed it... 

 

Though I mostly use it to see if I'm in AB or not, didn't pay much attention to the stick position....

[imacken]

You need a throttle with detents.  I can highly recommend the Virpil CM3!

[ampentium2]

9 minutes ago, imacken said:

You need a throttle with detents.  I can highly recommend the Virpil CM3!

 

I do, but budget does not allow at the moment...

 

So, I make do with toggle detent...