Upgrading to the Pro Flight Trainer Puma X

HeliSimmer.com article comments
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If there’s a piece of hardware that I know very well that piece of hardware is the Pro Flight Trainer Puma.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.helisimmer.com/articles/opgrading-to-pro-flight-trainer-puma-x/
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Agreed, its a great piece of hardware, and I feel like I should share my experience.

I also ordered a Puma X in October. (Dual throttles/no pedal brakes.) When I assembled it, I noticed one of the “pitch links” to the pedals was bent. After a few hours of flying it I started to notice that the yaw control started to slip. I would apply full pedal deflection on the Puma and at times this would only register as partial deflection in the sim, and usually grew into full deflection. While this was fun to practice stuck pedal scenarios, it grew tiresome when trying to have a normal flight. After several times recalibrating the controls, remapping all buttons and axes, testing it on multiple aircraft and multiple weather settings in X-plane, the problem kept reappearing.

I contacted PFT and they were incredibly responsive and collaborative. (I think they even responded to an email I sent on Christmas!). Eventually, the pedal movement just stopped being recognized in the sim completely. PFT send me a couple new Hall Effect sensors, new “pitch links” and several washers. When I disassembled the pedals I found that the magnet (that rotates as a result of pedal movement) had twisted the sensor completely off the circuit board. PFT recommended that I install the washers beneath the sensor assembly to prevent any actual friction occurring between the sensor and the magnet (I think). A week after repair and several hours of flying, it has performed perfectly.

I would just like to publicly thank PFT for being so responsive and helpful in finding a fix for this. I haven’t been a simmer long, but I think this really is an example of why people use the word “community” to describe what is clearly more than a hobby.

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Thank you very much for sharing that story. I find it very important that, like you say, we act as a community and we come forth and tell others about the experiences we have with the several companies we deal with.