The Simulated Flying Experience by Sandy Barbour
I have recently upgraded my system with the inclusion of a CH flight yoke, pedals and GoFlight panels. I had tried a yoke many years ago but I unwisely bought a cheap model and it was not very good. It did not mount to the desk very well so as you might imagine, a wobbly control yoke is not really the thing so for years I have been using a joystick with twist grip for rudder. Anyway back to the yoke and pedals. Any change in a setup you've been using for years is bound to feel awkward at first. It did take a while to get used to proper rudder pedals for ground steering and coordinated turns but it does seem very natural now. That, combined with the yoke has made the simulated flying experience a lot better for me.
So fine you have the yoke, the pedals but what about all this reaching over the top of the yoke to access the keyboard and mouse? There had to be some way of getting round that, after a little research I came across the GoFlight panels. The idea was to remove the reliance of the keyboard and mouse to access the common knobs and switches on the instruments panels. I bought 3 of their push button panels, 2 of their toggle switch panels and a display panel for comms and nav functions. I now have them set up to cover the use of the switches and buttons that I would normally access with the mouse. The display has knobs that allow you to tune the comm., nav, adf and other instruments that were always a bit fiddly with the mouse.
So what is the difference and is it worth the effort? Well this is just one mans opinion. I think they have made flying the simulator a lot easier and a lot more fun. The other good thing is that I have set-up the panel so that it will cover all the different aircraft that I fly in FS2002. As the panel layout does not change I can quickly access the switches and buttons. Where it comes in to its own is IFR which I love doing, it means that I can set up nav1 and nav2 quite easily when I am navigating from VOR to VOR.
Setup showing yoke and panels, note throttle, prop and mixture controls on yoke
Hardware setup and details........
Assembly
The units are attached by two knurled screws. The supplied USB cables are just connected between the units and the USB hubs. I set them up so that the units would stack properly in the configuration program.
GF-45
This unit can be used as COM1, COM2, NAV1, NAV2, AP, ADF, INST, XPDR.
You set this up using the configuration program. One thing that I found after I had the units set up was that you can switch this functionality using one of the GF-P8 units. You assign two push buttons to cycle through the above functionality, this means that you can get by with just one unit. It has two knobs that have different functions depending on which mode is selected. Usually this is changing the digits as in COM1 frequency etc. the left knob changes the left of the decimal point the right changes the right of the decimal point. If AP is selected then you can cycle through the different input option on the autopilot such as IAS, Altitude etc. INST for example allows you to change the Altimeter, Gyros, OBI1, OBI2 and ADFH.
GF-P8
This unit has eight push buttons that have two states. Function mapping is accomplished using the supplied software
GF-T8
This unit has eight toggle switches with indicator lights. Basic function is the same as the GF-P8 Both the push buttons and the switches can be configured for most of the buttons and switches used by FS2002 or CFS2.
USB
I have 6 Go-Flight units as well as quite a few USB devices so I added the following:
4 port Belkin PCI USB2.0 card, 2 port USB PCI card.
2 x Belkin 7 port hubs.
I found that some of my existing USB device did not like hanging of the hubs hence the extra USB ports in the PC. Once I did that I have had no problems.
Configuration Program
This is very easy to use and the picture files show how I have the units set up. Prior to version 1.23 the program added a gauge to all the FS2002 and CFS2 panel files. Version 1.23 uses a FS2002 module which means that you aircraft panel files are not modified.
Conclusion
These units make flying a lot easier as you do not have to depend on the keyboard or mouse. It should be mentioned that the functionality in FS2002 is a lot better than currently supported in X-Plane. You have access to all the panels and functions found within FS2002. In X-Plane only the first of each type of panel is initialised. The buttons are then assigned in the same way as joystick buttons. The GF45 panel defaults to NAV1 and I cannot change this.
"ED. Its expected that this situation will improve once the X-Plane plug-in system becomes available this fall....."
Sandy Barbour, 8/02
The complete line of Go Flight Products and full information is available in Department-1 of the Digital-Flight Sim Store.