I hear this all the time and on every Youtube video where someone is testing out a new yoke they say something like " of course you don’t want to use this in a fighter plane".
I played a lot of IL-2 in the past and after I got my Honeycomb yoke I tried it in that game and I quickly realized how much easier it was to be accurate and make smooth adjustments in order to hit the targets and fly in formation. I find that with a normal joystick the range of motion is so small that you have to have a non-linear sensitivity curve in order to be somewhat accurate when trying to make small adjustments. With the yoke I can have linear curves and the plane does exactly what I expect it to do with no sudden heavy bank when you reach the end of the sensitivity curve.
The only plane I use my old T16000 joystick with nowadays is the A320 because it resembles that planes sidestick pretty well in terms of range of motion.
Why are yokes considered so bad for fighter planes among the Youtube aviators? Am I the only one using my yoke even in combat sims?
Sticks react faster than yokes. So I"d prefer a joystick too. A yoke somehow “feels” wrong to me. There are notable exceptions of course like the P-38 which has a yoke.
You can do whatever you like of course. A yoke has greater range of roll movement than a stick (without an extension), and two hands, so I could see it being good for small adjustments. But a stick definitely can be faster to move suddenly, and if you fly fighter jets with more advanced control schemes, having one hand on a throttle at all times is necessary, so a yoke isn’t really the best fit for that either.
I guess you’re right. Come to think of it, I’m mostly flying attacker planes in IL-2 so the need for fast reactions are less than if you’re dogfighting in a Bf 109. Still, I would prefer a floor-mounted stick instead of an Airbus style joystick but I haven’t really seen a good option anywhere that isn’t too expensive or complicated to set up.
Ive been using a Saitek Yoke for about four years now, and YES I use it for all my aircraft including, F14, F35, Spitfire, Corsair, P38, T45c…. no issues, I find its actually easier to use than a stick…. Not realistic…. But Im in VR so don’t care.
As an absolutely minimum you have to all have both a yoke and a joystick attached to enjoy a variety if planes.
Try and fly a glider or helicopter with a yoke. Doesn’t work. The other way round is slightly better. You can fly a twin otter with a joystick but it is certainly not realistic.
You can fly all planes with a xbox controller I guess but it will not give you the impression that you are I an actual plane and controlling it hands on as irl.
Guess it is all down to your ambition level ( and your vallet).
I bought a flight stick years ago, because I flight sim and Falcon BMS, and it made sense. I’d rather have to fly a cessna with a flight stick than fly an F-16 with a GA yoke.
But yeah, these days it makes even more sense since modern airliners are using sticks too.
In my opinion using a regular joystick you control with your hand for a plane with a floor-mounted stick is as unrealistic as using a yoke.
How do you guys deal with the extreme twitchiness of the joystick? Just lower the sensitivity like crazy and hope you never have to make big movements?
I imagine the point those aviators are trying to make is that in a HOTAS scenario (i.e when you need your hand on throttle), you can still push/pull/bank the joystick easily to its extremities (such as when in combat) .
Whereas on a yoke, you certainly can still fly “1-handed” , but it’s more suited to micro-adjustments (such as landing). Pushing a yoke to its limits one-handed is just more awkward.
I won’t swear to this, but think most military planes, transports too are moving toward a joystick. One reason is in training, all those planes have a JS-stick. Cannot swear for the C-130, as have not got one, and been years since been inside one, then yoke. The C-17 has stick, all fighters do (modern), the C-47 has yoke, DC-6 too. 747/787 all have yoke. Most GA planes have yoke as well.
I like JS and have been using since first starting FS’s. Considered the Honeycomb Alpha for a while, then added to the budget and got the Virpil VFX stick on the mongoose base and the CM-3 Throttle unit. Getting throttle setup was chore, as only two real throttle levers, and Reverse Thrust has been dedicated to a button hold down, and advance throttles to stop. That is both in X-plane and MSFS. Still using keyboard in FSX, and still working on configuring CM-3 in FSX.
I sim everything with a Warthog hotas. A stick is suitable for the majority of what I like to sim - DCS tac jets and GA taildraggers in MSFS - but I also fly the Kodiak, the Bonanza, and the PMDG NGx (on old FSX) with the stick. Does it match the feeling exactly of flying these airplanes in reality? No. Would it if I used a yoke? Absolutely not.
So it does not matter whether you’re using a stick or yoke. I look at it as just learning a new airplane even if it’s something I fly in reality; any time you learn a new airplane in real life, you don’t waste time thinking about whether its controls are ergonomically perfect (and in most old airplanes, they aren’t)… you just adapt to what it DOES feel like and do what’s necessary.
Now, quality of sim hardware absolutely makes a difference. The experience can be quite different using a sticky controller with noisy pots, or a silky smooth controller with Halls. It wouldn’t surprise me if many people who say how completely different the experience is when they get their honeycomb yoke were using a cheaper old joystick to begin with, and the difference they perceive has less to do with form factor and more to do with quality.
Just flew the BigRadials N17 with a yoke…(first time in a while I’d fired up that plane, since I got my Honeycomb).
Makes such a difference…soo much smoother. Feels more ‘realistic’ in terms of control even though of course the plane has a stick.
For the purpose of alleviating the cognitive dissonance I just pretend I’m a rich playboy and had the aircraft retrofitted with a yoke for my modern sensibilities…
