I have one and love it, it’s almost like the real thing. Initially it was more realistic as it had more friction but over time it loosened up a bit, it’s not terrible but I wish it had a tension knob on it. The saitek cessna trim wheel has no stops in either direction and shows up as controller with a single axis, unlike the bravo trim wheel which shows up as two buttons. I imagine what they have going on inside is an optical encoder as you would with old mice.
I would recommend the saitek trim wheel to anyone looking for a good trim solution.
Edit: I recently got the Honeycomb Bravo and I love it except for its trim wheel which is a disappointment. I plan on making more room for the trim wheel and then my setup will consist of the Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, CH Pedals, and Saitek Trim wheel.
I have and it doesn’t work despite doing the settings menu ingame. In fact, something weird happened yesterday that never happened before. Since I still have it set up, I decided to try it again and suddenly a big flash went off…sort of like taking a flash photo while flying inside the cockpit. For some strange reason the ac was unresponsive despite the speed instrument increasing when I put more throttle in. I then realized that I was in PAUSE mode. I eventually erased all settings for the Saitek trim for now but still have it plugged in.
I have a Saitek wheel trim but must confess most of the time I end up using the small one on the multi panel for convenience reasons. It is a little bit hard on friction but it works well for small adjustments.
I agree on the latter part. If you want big adjustments it’s a little more work, but for little adjustments it’s very good. So basically it’s the opposite of trimming with buttons. And with the multi panel using the AP is much more comfortable. They are quite rare at the moment but I finally got one for a reasonable price on ebay.
Had the opportunity recently to get a used Saitek Cessna trim wheel, but didn’t buy it because it’s the same size as the throttle quadrant.
I absolutely agree on that, I can’t see the logic behind Asobos decision on forcing this weird non-linear acceleration on a control that requires very fine tuning… And no option to turn the acceleration off for linear control!
I think I know why, because I once tried to assign the trim axis to a lever on my old CH yoke.
In the C172, when I turned the auto pilot off, the plane usually went crazy because it tried to set trim according to the lever, which could be far from what the A/P had set it to. In a real plane the trim wheel is turning automatically when the A/P adjusts it. No so in the sim.
Sending a series of up/down events from a wheel with no min or max position makes much more sense because it just takes over trim setting where the A/P left it.
I don’t know where you are based, the multipanel has a good trim wheel though the number of rotations relative to trim movement needs to be adjusted (this has been acknowledged by Logitech).
I am interested in this. Can you explain a bit more how you set it to the neutral position so that you can trim it up and down? Is there a “stop or bump” in the middle to start with?
Trimming is one of those things that’s just way easier IRL vs in sim. I usually stick with the ‘electric button on the yoke’ approach combined with just using the AP in the sim. Just becomes too tedious trying to trim out without a proper trim wheel.
Guys, I have a Cessna throttle quadrant all attached with a Logitech throttle and a Saitek throttle and the Cessna trim wheel I am planning on getting rid of. I LOVE using the Cessna throttle quad on the planes the have a push pull throttle, axis & mixture and the Logitech/Saitek throttles for the lever aircraft. I also have the Saitek Autopilot panel attached to the Saitek Radio panel I no longer use as well. I was going to put them on eBay but if you are interested, let me know and maybe I can just get rid of them that way instead.
I use the Saitek trim wheel all the time, I would be lost without it. One thing that is irritating though, as Hendis55 pointed out, is that because it is not motorised, it does not align with whatever trim position has previously been set, e.g. by the autopilot, so if you turn off the autopilot and then touch your trim wheel you get a step change in trim which is usually fairly dramatic and leads to all sorts of bad language because I tend to disengage the AP on short finals. This can also happens on take off if you havent twiddled the trim wheel first to make it align.
I think the trim wheel works fine on the Bravo. Really the only issue I have with the Bravo is the autopilot because some times disconnects or do not activates on some aircraft. The way i solved that problem was to reconnect my multipanel and place it on top of the Bravo, since it has the that option, and I’m using SpadNext. That way, I have all the autopilot functions working fine while I’m using everything else on the Bravo. Right now the only thing I’m not using is the switch panel. That one has the trim and the landing gear lever as well and it was working fine, but I rather use the Bravo.
Trim in MSFS is exactly the same as it was in FSX. Tapping the trim button (wherever you bind it) gives you fine control. Longer presses will increase trim rate. I have not noticed an issue with trim. Fly extensively by hand and can go get a beer without needing AP, (I know because I have left my chair a few times, forgetting to activate AP. Never had a significant deviation in those cases.)
For the non-IRL pilots just remember, do not trim using the VSI. Stabilize/Trim/Stabilize.
I have the Saitek Cessna trim wheel and love it, use it every day. I purchased it many years ago, I think it was like $50. Unfortunetly, after Logitech bought Saitek, they discontinued it with no plans to bring it back. My son started flight simming and I looked at getting him a trim wheel. If I could find one on ebay or something, they were going for $300 or more. I ended up buying the Mini trim wheel from desktopaviator.com (The Desktop Aviator - The NEW Model 2700 Trim Wheel Panel. The 2700 can be used with FSX, FSX-SE, FSUIPC and X-Plane v10.xx and the new v11.xx Flight Simulators) and built a housing for it and gave it to him last Xmas. It turned out pretty good and he reports it works perfectly in MSFS (as well as X-Plane).
I built my own trim wheel using a 10-turn-potentiometer and a Joy-It zero delay encoder. The picture below is the prototype in use. It is attached sideways to the Logitech throttle quadrant (same form and size)
The wheel input is assigned to the trim axis. It is a joy to trim the aircraft with the wheel. I can fly now with much more precision during all flight phases. Especially reaching a stabilized landing configuration is much easier.
As noted by others before, it may conflict with autopilot usage. But as I mainly fly GA aircraft and the taildraggers for bush flying, I never use the autopilot. Whenever I fly other types and use autopilot or FMC I disconnect the trim wheel and use the elec trim buttons on the yoke.
I just use something like 8% neutral in the middle mark and it’s easy then to just return it without looking. It works very well for a simple fix and it’s vastly better than the joke that Honeycomb pulled with their wheel. That was a poor show.
I thought the same, but things improved when I got rid of the acceleration bug, aka 10 degree heading bug, using FS Tool (link to thread below). That made the increments of trim much finer and it is now usable. Not as good as the real thing, but much better than it was.
