I need to tap into your wisdom and experience! What would be the best peripherals for a VR simmer (HP Reverb G2)?
For the moment, I use a Thrustmaster T16000M (old version apparently, all grey with green central LED - the ones I see online seem to have orange accents). It works pretty well, but I’m having trouble really fine controlling the plane when trying to fly seriously (via FS Academy VFR lessons with small GA aircraft for now) - turning while judiciously controlling altitude and applying rudder via the Z-axis is hard! I have two buttons for flaps (up a notch, down a notch), two buttons for elevator trim (which I find really hard to adjust), and then buttons for gear up/down, brakes, pause & active pause, etc.
I’m looking at first getting rudder pedals. The Thrustmaster T.Flight pedals seem they will get the job done - any advice on those?
But then I have head of how amazing the Honeycomb Alpha is, and now I’m thinking about getting that in addition with the pedals above, and a Thrust quadrant from Logitech (with one of the thrust levers assigned to flaps, another to elevator trim, and another to thrust). Does that sound like a reasonable combination as an upgrade path from the simple flight stick I have?
Note that while I am a real-life paragliding pilot, I have never touched the controls of a powered aircraft, so no idea how they feel in real life.
Thank you!!
The Honeycomb yoke and throttle quadrant look very impressive. I have yet to read a bad review of them. I’ve been kicking around the idea of purchasing them as well.
A button/switch/encoder box is a great addition to VR flight. I built my own but there are purchase options out there. Makes a world of difference not having to try using the mouse to turn radio frequencies and such.
I use the honeycomb yoke and throttle and saitek Cessna pedals.
I would recommend the honeycomb products…very good quality at the price point. I previously had the saitek yoke and throttle quadrant and the honeycomb products in comparison are significantly better.
I fly VR and have recently purchased a behringer x touch mini which is a midi controller it has 8 rotaries and 16 buttons and an A and B mode which effectively doubles the amount of options ie 16 rotaries and 32 buttons. The rotaries can also be pressed essentially doubling the use of rotaries to 64. Its £47 from amazon which is great value.
It isn’t native to msfs so would need an additional piece of software such as axis and ohs to map the msfs buttons to the midi controller.
It does take a bit of learning in vr as you can’t see the buttons but I have created a template of the buttons in excel and use a freeware electronic flight bag and pdf a copy of the excel template which I then can bring up in the cockpit whilst in vr.
I’m flying the dc 6 at the moment and have mapped the gyro pilot and gtn430 and nav 2 which helps a lot.
Any further info let me know
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If you hard mount the box then muscle memory takes over. You could even put a mix of knobs on it to help differentiate between them. I have different knobs for each function but am drawing up a greater range of shapes for adjacent ones. With the box hard mounted it’s really not difficult to find what I’m looking for.
A pic for reference. It’s the box with too many buttons on the right.
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Here you go!
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/honeycomb-yoke-stopped-working-customer-support-no-where-to-be-found/265424
I bought one and found the build quality to be mediocre and the switches were on par with my children’s toys. Importantly though, the feedback was not at all realistic in comparison to the types I have flown. Happily I bought it via Amazon so they refunded it quickly enough.
Have you used other consumer level yokes, or is the comparison to actual aircraft yokes?
I own both Honeycomb devices, although I can not say anything about how it will work in 5 years down the road, I found them to be very good for the price.
Yes, they do not feel like real aircraft throttles/yokes, but none of them do in the price range. I also aggree that the inner build quality does not look superb for me, still I had no real issue with the devices. Switches feel adequate.
You get what you pay for ultimately, I think honeycomb build quality is good for the money. As for the insides I haven’t opened up or looked but having modded a saitek Cessna In the past to improve it , the insides usually don’t look pretty or appear a bit simplistic.
The users comparing a yoke to a real plane Probably need to be looking at a higher price point… Brunner or precision flight… too expensive for me though.
Hello! I was comparing to actual aircraft. Silly me! 
I fly only VR and started with only a t16000 (orange) then added the Logitech throttle because I wasn’t enjoying trying to adjust the throttle on joystick with headset on, kept knocking it accidentally. I then added the Thrustmaster pedals, because I wasn’t enjoying twisting the throttle. I was pretty happy with that setup until curiosity got the best of me and I went and bought the alpha, and that was the best thing ever! It’s so much more immersive in VR over the joystick. I’ve since added a homebuilt encoder and button box and that’s pretty much my setup. I have no issues or complaints about any of my peripherals.
I would only use the throttle levers for throttle/prop/mix (or speed take/throttle/throttle for airliners) because I tried flaps and trim on the levers and it’s easy to bump them while you’re feeling around blindly with your headset on. You have trim on the yoke and I use one of the rocker switches at the bottom of the throttle for flaps.
I say go for it! And although I haven’t used any high end peripherals in my reasonably short sim career, for me these products are a good choice and i haven’t had a single issue yet.
Thanks for all the feedback! You all have very impressive setups!
Also, I see the Alpha is indeed well respected. In particular, Adam, thanks for all the details, this is exactly what I was looking how.
However, my wallet does NOT thank you. Tssk tssk. 
Just wanted to add - just two days one of the only Alphas in stock in Japan (there were only 2 available countrywide) went on sale, and I just grabbed it. I have now received it and yes. Wow. Such a difference! The yoke originally had quite a dead zone, but a Youtube video taught me the calibration method to use, and it is now almost dead-zone free. It just feels amazing! And received the Logitech throttle quadrant the same day. The default mappings on both are excellent, and my life now feels complete 
Although one day I will get a Yaw2 chair
Now I need to fight the urge to get the Bravo quadrant (because it looks hard to use in VR, and really I would only be buying it for the trim wheel). But I might buy a third party trim wheel as adjusting trim with the buttons still feels fairly difficult to me.
Thanks again!
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Using the bravo is doable in vr but you do have to count the button/switches, If you want to use the autopilot and switches.
I have mapped the bravo to the dc6 and because it has a gyropilot which is an early autopilot I had to change the mapping of the autopilot. I have created a pdf of the button layout and drop this into e bag which is freeware, that way I can bring up a schematic of the buttons in the vr cockpit to help me remember what I’ve assigned where.
Great to hear you have got the yoke, hope it brings you a lot of enjoyment😀
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Hi all, for space reasons, I’m going to abandon my 6-monitor setup for a VR solution. However, I’d like to at least continue using my thrustmater joystick and throttle. I’ve heard it’s possible. Maybe I’m missing something fundamental: how does it work?
How do I hold the joystick or throttle when I have the VR controllers in my hand to change buttons?
I’d love to have your advice, as I seem to be lost…
Thanks in advance
Hi,
I fly exclusively in VR. Don’t use the controllers at all. Just my yoke and throttles (Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo), or my HOTAS joystick (Thrustmaster Warthog) nd rudder pedals (MFG Crosswind).
To operate switches, levers and other controls, which are not setup with the above, I use the mouse and a few keys on my keyboard, which I can feel and reach blindly when wearing the VR headset.
Hi Super275327, thank you for the quick answer! Got it, sounds good!
Cheers
I additionally use Voice Attack to control functions like ‘Escape’, ‘Center VR’, ‘Set Altimeter’, ‘Flashlight on’, ‘Toolbar’ and so on and so forth. So I don’t have to use the keyboard and can stay in VR most of the time.
I also never use my Q2 VR controllers; I use FSUIPC7, it is very versatile e.g. I have a Thrustmaster Airbus sidestick and throttle quadrant only. The sidestick has 16 buttons and 8 position hat-switch position, and with FSUIPC7 I have defined 4 functions to each switch, so I have 64 push buttons and 32 hat switch positions available, so a total combination of 96 buttons and/or rotary functions available - enough to control MCP, flaps, gear, radios and other functions so not need to use the Q2 hand controllers when flying in VR, for the odd other function I use the mouse. Currently I am looking into extending the above, so once done I have a multiple of 96 buttons available (192 or more buttons/functions). In addition, multiple functions also can be defined to one button with a macro script, so endless possibilities. I fly GA airplanes with this set up as well as PMDG 737-800, without problem or VR controller as using the VR controllers is a VR immersion breaker for me.
