It’s true, it has been one of my biggest doubts since the beginning.
Yesterday I was looking at the motor used on the Simucube, since they have a direct drive steering wheel and they said that it has no cogging. Well, it turns out there is even a wiki page:
https://granitedevices.com/wiki/List_of_motors_for_SimuCUBE
and those motors deliver 20-30Nm. And they cost a fortune.
But… what you say it’s correct: a sidewinder has a plain, simple, small brushed DC motor (with no detectable cogging on the joystick) and the torque is what you can deliver on something that is not fixed on a table. But I have seen videos of force feedback steering wheels that bend the tables where they are fixed, and that seems quite eccessive.
Add this to the fact that the simulator is only giving a 0-max indication of the torque, so no real value that you need to generate. Therefore, unless you do the work that @tsaG13374551 did some time ago of getting a real plane and measure the force generated on the stick applying weight on the control surfaces, or we are all just guessing.
This is one of the reasons why I would like to build the mechanics of the yoke once I can restart working on this project. I will be able to try different motors and see what makes sense to use.
Probably even for the roll axis in direct drive what I have is too much: I’m using it at 30V 2A max and it is difficult to hold it.
Thank you @MikeSierra2030 for the indication of the motor!