Rudder pedals sensitivity

Hi all,

Xplane 11 with vulkan beta

I’m just after some advice for set up on xp11 with peripherals. I have the thrustmaster t.16000 flight set including stick, hotas throttle and rudder pedals. I’ve been flying the RotorSim bk117 and ec135v4 as well as the bell 412.

What I have noticed is that the yaw axis is really variable and I’d love some input from folk who have any or all the above aircraft.

Essentially I’ve got myself really comfortable with the bk117 and find a good amount of travel is required for control input on the antitorque. As such I actually feel like I’m able to control this heli. When I switch to the 412 and even more so with the ec135 though, I find the yaw axis really twitchy. The tiniest (and I mean change in pressure not even pedal movement) control inputs result in a large output on the yaw axis so I find it really hard to stay stable in hover and low speed manoeuvres. I apply a little antitorque for takeoff and always find it’s too much so I try to back off and get the opposite. It doesn’t help that my peddles are a bit sticky so they often move in little bursts rather than smoothly (any tips for this?) but this isn’t noticeably a problem with the bk117

I’ve tried fiddling with the axis curves and have them set the same for all aircraft. The global sensitivity and stability are at zero. It just seems a vastly different experience between the different aircraft and I’d love to know which is correct. I’ve nowhere near been able to tame the 412 or the ec135 despite them both described as easy to fly by some.

I’m lucky enough to be rear seat aircrew on an h145 hems service and I’ve been watching the pilots like a hawk to try to get I feel for how much control input they have to put in and it feels like the bk117 is more realistic. (Though don’t get me wrong I know there’s no substitute for actually flying. One day perhaps)

I’d be really grateful for any tips and input. Thanks a lot in advance
Nathan

Hi Nathan.

That’s an odd behaviour. I have the 3 helicopters and they kinda behave the same. The 135 is a bit more responsive but the 412 and the 117 not really. The 412 is actually a bit heavy (which she is in real life).

Have you tried to re-calibrate the pedals in the sim?

Look up the disassembly procedure for them and apply some quality grease to the surfaces that move against each other.

Usually some amount of nonlinearity on the yaw axis, at least when yaw dampers are used. Some helos that aren’t tuned quite right will also need you to lower the maximums possible, otherwise you can end up with loony yaw rates. I think there was a KA-50 the day I was messing around with the art stab in planemaker on, and the easiest way to deal with its yaw rates was just to do that. On the Comanche, Apache, and Tiger I modded, I don’t believe attenuation is necessary for the user. If no yaw damper or tail mixing/gear ratio is done and your pedals don’t have springs, you may not need any nonlinearity, though, in which case it’s just a matter of how fast a max yaw you want with full deflection.