Unable to assign axis to flaps, only buttons work

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
, , , ,
1

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to get a throttle axis or any of the other axes to work with the flaps of the 747-8i or the A320neo in MSFS2020. I can only map flaps extend/retract to buttons. I haven’t tried this in any other aircraft.

The axes work just fine when controlling spoilers or throttles. I’ve tried this with the VelocityOne Flight Control System and I also tried (as a test) to assign the throttle axis of my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick to the flaps.

When I assign one of the throttle quadrant axes on the VelocityOne or the Logitech joystick to the flaps, they behave erratically. For example: The flaps jump all over the place, rapidly oscillating between full and 0 (so fast that I can’t accurately capture it in video) in the A320neo if I move the assigned axis
and they continue to jump around even after I stop moving the axis. The flaps in the 747-8i deploy to the right position when I move the Z axis down but then immediately retract back to 0 even though I leave the axis in the same position.

I hope I’m just making a config mistake here. I just assign the axis to the “Flaps Axis” in the “Controls Options” for the respective device.

  • I’ve tried doing this by letting MSFS detect which input I am moving and I’ve also done this by manually providing the input.
  • I’ve tried performing the calibration procedure on the VelocityOne (power it on while holding the 2 buttons to put it in calibration mode) but that made no difference.
  • I’ve tried (temporarily) assigning one of the other throttle quadrant axes to the flaps and, as I mentioned, even tried it with a throttle axis on a different input device but the problem still happened. There seems to be something about the flaps control that doesn’t like using an axis like this.
  • I’ve verified that the Game Controllers > VelocityOne Flight Properties in Windows 10 shows normal axis behavior on all of the axis, including Z. This is confirmed in the game by the fact that I’m able to (temporarily) assign the Z axis to one of the engines and that works fine. I repeated this same verification with the joystick throttle

Is there something I missed during setup, is it just not possible to assign one of the throttle axis to the flaps in MSFS2020 or is this a bug?

I made a short video to explain what I’m experiencing: https://youtu.be/qVfqhIIR8xU

  • OS: Windows 10
  • Game: Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, updated today. Installed via Steam.
2

It sounds very much like a binding conflict, i.e. you have some other button position or axis also tied to a flaps command, and they are competing against each other.

3

I tried to clear all bindings on the Velocity One and the Extreme 3D Pro but still found that the problem can be triggered by simply mousing over the flaps lever in the A320neo v2 and 737-8i.

I restored the default mouse and keyboard config which has 2 of the F5 and F7 keys mapped to flaps retract and extend. Pressing that makes the oscillation stop in the A320new v2 for a moment but then it just restarts on it’s own.

I disconnected every USB device (including the velocity one and extreme 3d pro) except for the keyboard, mouse and external soundcard but the issue remains.

I’m not quite sure what else to try besides a reinstallation of the game.

4

help

I have the thrust master tca captain pack, having a lot of problems with my flaps and spoilers.

I have took loads advice and nothing seems to work. Whenever I pull my flap level to position 1 it goes all the way down on the screen, and the spoilers are the same, very frustrating , please help

5

I uninstalled the game, cleaned up all of the temp files and the AppData/Roaming/Microsoft Flight Simulator and the issue is still present after reinstall. I haven’t even connected any of my input devices. Just using keyboard and mouse. This definitely seems like a bug. It worked a few weeks ago.

6

Update: It turned out that the games Assistance features caused this problem. I don’t know why they suddenly started doing this but turning them off fixed it.

Having the assistance move the flaps back to 0 in the 737-8i without letting the user know why seems like a UX problem but the oscillating flaps handle in the Airbus A320 in this circumstance seems like a bug. I’m not sure if I should report it as such or if this would receive the old “it’s a feature, not a bug” response.

1 Like