It’s ridiculously useful, isn’t it?
Yes, it is. I had the controller sitting only about 10 inches further away on top of the yoke box, but having it right at hand is a completely different experience.
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Well, it’s been six days. Do you guys still like using your controller mounted on your yoke?
I have been waiting to mount mine on my Alpha until you guys Guinea-Pig’ed yours and lived with them this way.
Holding mine up on the yoke it seems like I can reach all four of the triggers with my thumbs on the front of the controllers.
I “have” made a few mistakes while flying with just the yoke’s buttons and I think the controller could solve these mistakes for me.
Is the Velcro flawlessly holding them on there? Velcro is about as cool as Windex is (MBFGW).
Yup, still have mine attached and likely won’t be going anywhere any time soon. I love having free look capability within thumb’s reach. I missed that horribly switching to the Honeycomb from my X56 that had a free look thumb stick.
I’ve since basically reassigned almost everything on the XBox controller from default to functions I find far more useful. Like the D-pad now moves me around the cockpit like the arrow keys on the keyboard would.
Thanks for the follow up, Crunch!
I know that the adhesive from the Velcro will mess up the finish on the yoke’s plastic, and that is why I hesitated. I didn’t want to mess up my shiny new BB gun.
I peeled up a small edge of the velcro and there seems to be no damage to the finish of the yoke or any residue. But it would also depend on the velcro used. I can imagine the concoction they use for their adhesive will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
The stuff I use I’ve been using for years for my astrophotography gear. It’s the best way to attach accessies to my mounts, cameras, tripod and telescopes in a non-permanent manner without having to drill holes. So far, I’ve never had issue with adhesive residue or damage of finish. BUt your results may vary.
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Mine works as a charm, great idea, thanks
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I have my XBox controller attached to my CH yoke with zip ties. Rock solid.
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I managed to place an order with Sporty’s a few days ago for February delivery. We’ll see if they make it, but that’s the expectation they set.
If I had not already ordered the Honeycomb TQ, I would have ordered the Virpil one instead. Smaller, can be mounted onto bracket which allows it to be lower down, like a real cockpit. Made of metal, excellent reviews, expensive, to say the least, but it has gobs of buttons/switches on it to cover almost anything you would want to setup. They also have some kind of panel which I think mimics the FMC systems of planes, not sure.
Be aware, if you order anything from them, the website is very difficult to figure out what to order as far as desk mounts go. My suggestion is to make sure the “mini” mount will work for your application as it will NOT work for the Mongoose Base and not sure about the other one either. I am having to return the mini mount to them and have ordered the correct one, so now get to wait another three months because of the backordered mess to clear. Plus shipping from there is as much as the price of the item you need to make all of it work.
FWIW-My TQ is still sitting at the Hong Kong Shipping FedEx facility, it’s been there for a week. Don’t know the hold up, suspect it is lack of flights to USA and COVIED vaccine (Aint taking it-don’t want to grow horns or worse). So it might be mid month or later before it gets here. Ok, cannot fly sim anyway, wrist is very damaged, may have to have surgery, but again won’t know that until the referral to the hand surgeon is made, starting tomorrow on Monday.
This whole experience has been frustrating to say the least. And latest patch has opened up some additional problems for some folks, although not affecting me. Was going to order rudder pedals from Virpil, but next month. I just passed my Ham Technician License, so waiting on the radio I want to be available in the channel. Everything is backordered of any substance. For while you could not get kitchen appliances because of the backlog, don’t know what else in short supply, plenty of TP now and hand sanitizer available in stores. Thank god the chickens have not gone on strike. I suspect, with the government leaders scrambling around doing stupid stuff, this won’t get fixed for 2021 either. It’s going to be one heck of a year. Glad I got plenty of yard work come summer, at least I will be entertained provided wrist will work.
The Virpil and Thrustmaster throttles are nice, but they are a slightly different product from the HC Throttle (or Virtual Fly TQ6 throttle or Saitek). The Virpil and Thrustmaster types are more oriented towards fighter plane (and a few commercial) flight/joy stick setups, as opposed to the yoke and throttle GA (and most commercial) plane setups. I’m not sure the Virpil is a good alternative for many yoke users. I know for me, I don’t find the Thrustmaster throttle to work well with my yoke, since it is on the wrong side for me. I have to switch to my joystick in order to like using the Thrustmaster throttle. When I use a yoke, which is most of the time, I like a throttle on the right side with levers for more than 2 engines and rpm and mix controls. If you just have a joystick, then the Virpil might be a better choice.
Mark
But yo have to cut them if your batteries are low 
I’m actually thinking about plugging in my old joystick, that’ll at least give me some axes for mixture and prop instead of using my mouse. At least until my Bravo gets here. And a few extra buttons, too, I hate using my keyboard and if I can find a way to avoid it, I will!
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Yes, I thought about that as well. I like the fact, I can have 4 thrust levers in the HC-TQ. Since I fly mostly big iron, that will work better for me. But, my desk does not lend itself to big FS items strung all over either. I will either have to setup a different place to fly from, or fly from the right seat, which I don’t want to do. Since I cannot even do that now, the stuff will sit in my office closet until I can configure a left seat operation. Since I cannot use the Virpil (wrong mount), and won’t setup the HC when it arrives, this decision can wait until I get the information about my hand/wrist figured out. Flying is secondary to working on the yard or driving the car (6-speed manual) so those are way more important than this game.
My hope is by the time all these variances come together, the drivers will be fixed, the switches will be fixed, the other issues in the Sim will be fixed, and it will all work seamlessly. I hope all the hype on the HC-TQ is truthful. The only other choice is Virtual Fly’s one, and it’s almost a thousand dollars. Having a yoke verses the joystick would also be nice, way less stress on my hand/wrist, but if/when the fighters come out, the joystick will make that more realistic. No, not going to buy another Sim game to fly them now.
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I decided to wire my XBOX controller to prevent it from shutting down if I haven’t used it in 15 mins. I used a small zip tie to attach the USB cable to the shaft of the yoke to maintain slack and not strain the connector
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I was thinking of doing the same thing. Wireless is cool, but not when you need it the most, and it fails.
Good idea!
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I can charge my controller on the yoke. Maybe some of them have the charge port in a different spot.
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The one issue I found is the 15 minute timeout where the XBox controller will shut itself off if not used. It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes on longer IFR flights, I may not use the controller for an extended period of time.
Ultimately I decided to go wired to prevent this, as turning on the controller mid-flight can have some undesireable results like it not being recognized, or crashing the sim as it detects “new” hardware. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn’t.
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I’m still liking it a lot. The velcro is holding fine. I have some on the back, and to help keep it in contact I have a couple of velcro straps wrapped around. Maybe I don’t need them, but it keeps it very solid.
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Are you plugging that into a power supply, or into your computer?