Brunner does and I have heard it is high quality, but it appears that from those that have the Brunner it is just a series of constant trouble getting it to work right. Maybe that is why we don’t have good force feedback in a yoke.
I would pick up a FFB yoke or flight stick pretty quickly - if there was one that was affordable. I wasn’t aware of the patent issues - I’d mostly assumed that it would be expensive to make a product with good quality, realistic FFB. I have a $1000+ direct drive FFB wheel setup for sim racing, but even a “cheap” FFB setup like the Logitech G series wheels is still $200-$300, which is a lot for many. And that just needs to provide FFB in 2 directions; left and right. I’d expect an entry level yoke with FFB would be $400-$500?
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There are no patent issues. The problem patent expired about 5 years ago now. people talking about the “patent issues” are clearly accessing old links that are out of date.
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Brunner Yokes are very expensive because they are FFD level D certified for use in real life flight training. People buy them for recreational flight simming but that is not what they are actually made for.
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The MS FFB2 is brilliant and most are still going strong 20 years later but they are no longer available. MS at the time solved the old patent issues by basically buying into the company that held the patent. The product line got killed off about the same time MS dropped the Flight Simulator franchise, allegedly because some corporate manager type felt that gaming should only be on an XBox, not PC, and FSX was detracting from the enterprise/commercial image of the Windows platform
Now as to why there are no consumer priced FFB gear now … in a nutshell it is a catch 22 situation.
Basically:
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Asobo is not prioritising proper FFB support as they feel it is a waste of effort when there are no consumer level sticks or yokes on the market, just esoteric pricey stuff like Brunner that very few can afford
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However the reason there are no consumer level sticks or yokes on the market is device manufacturers like Logitech, Honeycomb etc see no point developing devices if Asobo is not providing full FFB support in the sim. The lack of FFB support from the game would mean FFB functionality would be limited and a bit gimmicky and likely result in consumer dissatisfaction.
TLDR - there is no proper FFB support because there are no consumer level devices that need it and there are no consumer level devices because there is no proper FFB support
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I still have a G940 here, probably one of if not the last commercially available FFB sticks. That said the G940 overall is not very good quality, I replaced the pedals years ago and the throttle a few year ago with the Warthog. I still use the stick for helicopters where the inadequacies of the stick are slightly less pronounced.
Bring this more back to topic I had a variety of FFB when they were available before the G940 and overall do prefer the immersion they provide over sprung joysticks. It is a shame FFB had effectively become commercially unviable though.
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It stopped being viable pre-MSFS as in the last decade flight simming had become a niche activity without mass appeal and, more so, even the small number of people still simming had tended to gravitate towards study level procedure and flow simulations in tubeliners where FFB was of minimal benefit.
MSFS has changed all that, there is a large enough market now to support consumer priced FFB - the only catch is MSFS does not fully support FFB devices yet.
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I’ve heard this as well, I was pricing out a Brunner setup, but for the cost - all the reviews I’d seen didn’t really sell it.
PITA to setup and get it to work, when it does work - it feels really good, but not in every circumstance.
Also, I haven’t heard anyone taking about FF Pedals, which would be really useful as well.
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They are available.
Brunner again, and level D certified for professional training organisations and priced accordingly though.
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ah, cool… I hadn’t looked at their site in a few years… do you know if their software / setup has improved in recent years?
I do not use Brunner, I have a Fulcrum non-FFB Yoke and my trusty MS FFB2 stick (with an addon XPForce to emulate basic FFB functionality).
I believe there are threads kicking around by Brunner people where you could ask. You would also need to confirm MSFS compatibility as 2020 dropped a lot of the FFB functionality the older sims supported natively.
fair enough… I’m happy with my Honeycomb setups right now, as well. I tried a bunch of the early FF sticks back in the day, from the ones that just had rumble, to the Sidewinder that actually tried force - but was kinda weird 
Always curious about tech that can improve the experience.
I looked at Honeycomb and ended up deciding on the Fulcrum because it had a full 8" pitch travel and a full 180 degrees yoke movement, a removable handle so eventually you can have several types and switch around and was all metal, both handle and base. Not FFB though, also on the big side and no extra fancy switches on the base.
It was a few hundred dearer than a Honeycomb, quality up there with Yoko or Brunner, but not the insane price you pay for a Yoko or Brunner.
That said Honeycomb are pretty good for the price and far better than the toy yokes you get at the bottom end.
The Yoko’s have a great rep - but I can’t get past paying a grand for something that looks like grandpa built it on his workbench
I don’t know much about the Fulcrum setup. Honeycomb has a really nice design and good build quality - I still have spring centering issues, and if you don’t have the trim in the right spot, pitch changes can be ‘bouncy’
The Fulcrum looks similar to a Yoko. Has more elevator and aileron movement than a Yoko though and is all metal with actual aircraft switchgear in the handle. Fulcrum are pretty good, but almost always “out of stock”, they sell them as fast as they can make them, and you usually need to pre-order and wait till they make the next batch.
None of these devices are FFB though, so this is getting off topic a bit.
fair point.
I’d definitely like to try a Bruner FF setup sometime. Very curious to see how they do for myself.
there. back on topic
I imagine implementation of it would have to be in the game itself. Automotive sims are pretty much a live or die by the quality of the ffb, especially since you’re often driving to the bleeding edge in a confined area in a 2d world, so it’s everything for driving. I have a full Fanatec racing setup. It’s not about ‘complex flight systems’ in aircraft, but believe me, it’s not unusual to spend 3-4 hours tuning a car that was already tuned to your liking as a baseline only on a track you have hundreds of laps on(there’s always that extra .2 sec somewhere!)only to find out in qualifying the weather has flipped completely. And you’re never really ‘perfect’ with the FFB, it’s an endless honing.
Flight sims have plenty of their own miserable moments and what seems like countless hours of non flying time spent ‘tuning’ the sim, believe me driving sims have their on special kind of maniacal misery. Let alone investing 5 hours to ready up for a specific race only to be wrecked on turn 3 of the first lap. I’ve done FFB driving through many different generations of tech, but have no desire to add that ‘element’ to flight sims. Maybe in the future when full motion rigs and perfect VR hits it’s stride with full mainstream support.
FS98(dating myself again…), was the first MS flight sim to have native support for FF controllers. I got the Logitech FF, which was a beast in size sitting on a desk. I had that for 3 years till it died.
I actually enjoyed using the FF on FS98. Landing in a cross-wind, you could feel the resistance. I hope FF makes a comeback.
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I think I had the sidewinder 2 when it was Jane’s WWII or something like that back in the day. I do like my buttkicker though, just the basic with the standard game sounds is good 'nuff for me. We can’t even get MSFS to work for a 2 hour flight ATM. Imagine SU FFB bugs.
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I splashed out on a Brunner CLSE-NG a year ago rather than spend an even higher price for a graphics card, and I would say I’m pretty happy with it, although I realise I’m not getting anything like real force feedback from it. I haven’t found it hard to set up, and it’s never given me trouble during flying time. I also have a couple of Microsoft Sidewinders that I use for helicopters and other non-yoke aircraft, and there again the sensation is pretty good, but could be much better. I’m almost tempted to dig out an old version of Microsoft Flight Sim that supported the Sidewinder, just to get a feel for how much better things used to be…
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Austin Meyer of X-Plane fame made an interesting video on yokes a while back. He compares four yokes, and the link below takes you to the point where he is about to connect the Brunner software to the sim. What follows is a discussion about the implementation of force feedback.
This was the video that convinced me to get the Yoko Plus over the Brunner. I don’t know how this product progressed after this, and whether they did in fact change the datarefs that the hardware was driven by. A case of garbage in, garbage out.
I also don’t know how this would work with MSFS, and what sim variables they can access to drive the motors that cause the vibration.
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I recently splurged on all 3 of these from Brunner:
CLS-E MK II YOKE
CLS-E FORCE FEEDBACK JOYSTICK
CLS-E MK II RUDDER with Toe Brakes
I’ve only had them for a few weeks now but I’m very happy with them so far. It seems the Brunner software is a big part of the equation for the force feedback. It is very configurable, and you can have per aircraft profiles. I’m still tweaking and dialing in my profiles for different aircraft.
It is very expensive gear, but it is also high quality pro level gear. I’ve decided that flight simming is my most important hobby so I justified the purchase for myself though I do realize it is probably out of reach for many so I would love to see lower cost alternatives become available.
It really does make a huge difference in my experience of flight simming. In combination with my Varjo Aero headset which gives me the convincing visual experience, having the feedback and vibrations in the yoke and pedals convinces my brain that much more that I’m really flying. It would be hard for me now to go back to lifeless yoke and pedals.
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