Crazy Rudder

Pro Member First Officer
RichT First Officer

Ok, I've posted this problem before some years ago but at the time no-one could give me a definite answer and no-one seemed to have a similar experience.

Basically the problem is my rudder and steering keep flicking to the right. Yaw damp and centring the settings does nothing. It does it on every aircraft so it's not the aircraft. I have unistalled the rudder drivers, makes no difference. I have defragmented the drive, nothing. It used to happen on Windows XP, I now have Windows7 x64, so it's not the OS.

It's been some time since it last happened, but it always returns eventually. I have absolutely no idea why it happens and I find hard to believe I am the only person who has suffered this. It is extremely frustrating as I cannot fly whilst it is doing it, so do I spend countless hours messing around with drivers and settings until it disappears again, or does someone out there know about this problem?

Answers 6 Answers

Jump to latest
Pro Member Chief Captain
Tailhook Chief Captain

RichT wrote:

I have unistalled the rudder drivers,...

What do you mean by that? I've never heard anyone doing this... so I'm guessing you're referring somehow to your flight controls such as flightstick, yoke, throttle or pedals...?

I've read your post five times now and though you've told us about your change of the OS (which is helpful in any case) I can't seem to find any reference to your control setup -- unless I'm going blind of course. 😂

Pro Member First Officer
RichT First Officer

Yes sorry. I have the Saitek X52 Pro joystick and rudder pedals. What I have tried is unplugging the pedals, removing the drivers and FS assignments to the rudder. However, even with the default rudder settings and no rudder pedals, it still suddenly jerks to the right.

Not 100% sure what you mean by control set up? PC system set up is more than capable, with an Intel Core i7 950 - 6GB DDR3 1333Mhz - Intel X58 USB3 Motherboard and a Zotac GeForce GTX 580 3GB graphics card.

For the rudder controls I assign the rudder pedals using the Joystick Axes set up on FS, along with the right and left brakes. It is always set up the same and works 98% of the time, but as I said, every now and again I go through this period of the rudder going mad and no way of correcting it. It's like the flu, slowly gets worse then fades away.

One thing I have noticed is that if I do a flight, finish, and then try to do another flight without exiting FS, 9 times out of 10 this problem will happen. Usually by coming out of FS and then going back in it will correct itself.

It even happens when sitting at the stand and engines off. You can sit and watch the rudder, and within 5-10 seconds it will suddenly lock full right.

If you need any more info from me then please let me know.

Rich

Pro Member Chief Captain
Tailhook Chief Captain

RichT wrote:

Not 100% sure what you mean by control set up?

My turn to apologise, I meant flight-control set up.... the word flight seems to have taken flight and thus managed to confuse us 😀

My history is very similar to your own. I was running XP 32 Bit when I got the Saitek X-52 Pro. First I got the stick and throttle for a HOTAS set-up (never had a yoke).
A couple of months later I got the pedals for added realism, easier and more precise rudder control and of course the foot brakes.
I must mention that I have never made any profiles, never even programmed anything because at the time there was a bit of confusion at the Saitek Support site -- can't even remember what it was all about. So I postponed and postponed etc.
When, as mentioned earlier I added the pedals, I just plugged them in, didn't do any tweaking, didn't even bother to check the axis and what not in the control panel.
So, out of the box everything worked in harmony - what I did notice was that both the rudder on the stick (twisting motion) and the rudder input from the pedals worked at the same time i.e. I could use either one during the same flight.

I changed my desk and had problems fitting my knees under it, so I unplugged the pedals and put them back in the box for the time being (or so I thought).

Now I am running W7 64Bit on a different machine. I simply connected the stick and throttle (the pedals are still in 'storage') and off I went.
As before, I have never had any problems - but keep in mind that I now am not using pedals and I still haven't configured anything or created profiles.

I recall having a similar problem once for a short time. My aircraft would pull to the right (any aircraft) - on the tarmac and in the air. Then I remembered that the previous day I had been messing with my throttle. There is a thumb slider on the throttle which was pushed half way up. I pushed it back all the way down. Additionally there is a thumb wheel toward the top which I managed to re-center. These two adjustments fixed my problem.

In your case, I really don't know. There is always the possibility that the wiring of the pedals is faulty. I'll give you a couple of links which you probably have already perused but if you haven't you might find something helpful there:

http://www.saitek.com/uk/supp/x52fsx.html

http://www.saitek.com/uk/down/drivers.php

If you can't find a solution to the problem, I wouldn't hesitate and approach the Saitek folks via the support forum perhaps.

Pro Member First Officer
RichT First Officer

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

My 2 year old daughter often sits on my chair and loves fiddling about with the buttons. The thumb slider and wheel had been moved - putting them back seems to have stopped the rudder deviation.

I never thought of these as I had never assigned any functions to them, so I thought they were dead. Computers trying to be clever for you can often do things without you realising and hence drive you mad!

Thanks Tailhook!!

Pro Member Chief Captain
Tailhook Chief Captain

Well that is great news Rich!!

Now don't go and tell your little daughter not to fiddle with those buttons because you know what's gonna happen then 😀

I hope this rudder problem is solved for good.

Pro Member First Officer
Pete (pdegraff) First Officer

I had this problem once a long time ago - and I think I've responded to this problem before, also quite some time ago.
My problem was that the rudder would sometimes flick abruptly to the right and back again and sometimes move to the right gradually over a couple of seconds.
It turned out to be a failing 5 volt section of my power supply - the power supply of the computer. The computer maker sent me a new supply and the problem went away.
Good luck.
Pete

Still does not answer your question? Ask a new question!

If the question and answers provided above do not answer your specific question - why not ask a new question of your own? Our community and flight simulator experts will provided a dedicated and unique answer to your flight sim question. And, you don't even need to register to post your question!

Ask New Question...

Search

Search our questions and answers...

Be sure to search for your question from existing posted questions before asking a new question as your question may already exist from another user. If you're sure your question is unique and hasn't been asked before, consider asking a new question.

Related Questions

Flight Sim Questions that are closely related to this...