Yoke vs Pedals

start with the yoke....it makes a world of difference, especially in g.a aircraft.

Agree..... Pedals are great and I want some too .... but the Yoke gives more of a bang for the buck .... it really transforms the whole flying experience.

I wouldn't have thought many people would invest in the Pedals without first having a Yoke but I could be wrong.

I agree with all of the above and think it just comes down to which aircraft you prefer flying. If you fly a lot in an add-on Diamond Katana or fighter jet then a yoke won't be "as real as it gets". If your tastes are more mainstream, like the Cessna trainer, the Baron, and the popular Boeing airliners, then a yoke would be preferential.

Getting a yoke first makes sense for most people, and if you currently have a twist-grip joystick that works well for rudder control then you can usually keep it hooked up and use that feature of it while using the yoke for its function.

One more thing: MS didn't do the best job of creating true rudder dynamics, so I consider the pedals to be more of a "luxury" item anyway. Bottom line, get the pedals LAST or the yoke's on you. 😂

Yoke it is then! Thanks guys.

Bottom line, get the pedals LAST or the yoke's on you.

😂 I love bad jokes.
Andy 😀

Yep, yoke first always, although the pedals will soon become an essential addition, especially if you try them first, you'll be hooked 😂

Micah 😉

i got a pair of pedals first realizing that most of military aircraft and some airbus models are all flown with joysticks or control sticks......i think once you get hang of a joystick, its very easy to transition to a yoke, or vice versa......
but twisting a joystck simulating the pedals will never get you used to the pedals......

it seems that you can fly pretty well without the pedals in the simulator, but in the reality, the rudder is so important that you don't want to overlook,,,,

I hope Don Wood comments here because (and this is just IMHO) it seems to me that the real-world dynamics of rudder control is so different from the simulator that it's an area that badly needs attention from the MS developers. So while I do agree that learning proper rudder control is esential, I hardly think that FS prepares one for the "feel" of the real-world counterpart. Ditto for the overall flight dynamics, but even more so in the rudder dept.

FS9 is my favorite sim so far, bar none, and I'm including comparisons against X-Plane 8.11 and Micro Flight, etc. The best in terms of real-world flight dynamics at this point in time is X-Plane, so if it's emulating the actual aircraft control is paramount then that is the one to go with (until we see the next effort from Redmond).

As for me, I can't stand X-Plane's GUI and I prefer FS9's look, so I have no intention of switching over. Besides, all sims made for stock PCs have the same shortcoming: Display. The average user nowadays has what, a 19" monitor? That equals roughly one square foot (okay, more like 14x11 inches but close). Can you imagine piloting a real plane looking through a flat opening of that size?

So for better realism in simulated VFR flight you'd need a bunch of monitors arranged in a semicircle, but if you had a bunch of monitors then you'd have no FPS left to actually fly, lol. But even if you worked that bit out, you still don't have the motion feeling, so now you'll need a motion simulator, lol.

I guess my point is that for maximum realism take some lessons in an actual plane. The sim is great fun whether you have pedals and a yoke or a joystick (but keyboard? Uh, no.) so just enjoy it and learn all you can about procedures, instruments, etc. Get pedals if you want 'em, but don't feel like they are a necessity.

Happy contrails!