Discussion: add force-feedback to yoke

[hbeni]

As we fighted the vertical oscillation in the new kap yesterday (#379), i wondered if some force feedback for the yoke would be beneficial to the pilot. Currently there is no feedback on the forces at the yoke, allowing the plane to be flown with the yoke alone in an mistrimmed state forever.

I think an optional feature could solve this: once activated, the yoke could slowly return to the zero position vertically and laterally, forcing the pilot to either overcome this by ongoing correction or by trimming the craft. I think about a proportional effect, but always subtile, so no big changes.

The implementation could be a simple summer that calculates current position and an offset from the autopilot, the yokeforce and potentially dual-control in the future. This will also enable the pilot to oversteer the autopilot, which is currently not possible.

What do you think about this? @HHS81 @wlbragg

[wlbragg]

I like the idea, but I am not sure how you implement that with the real physical yoke. How do you reconcile the code numbers as the yoke is slowly centering with the actual position of the physical yoke? Is this problematic? Could you end up with a physical yoke pushed full forward or full back but the code numbers saying the yoke is centered? Maybe I don't fully understand what your proposing.

[hbeni]

I think that would be a case for switching the feedback option off. :point_up: A real yoke does center itself using springs, right? so we don't have the problem with knowing "where is the center" in the first spot.

Saying that, the root cause of the problem is to determine "where is the center"... Maybe there is a better option to let the pilot (without the real yoke) know that his controls are not centered. Maybe just a mark on the bar that connects the yoke to the plane?

The easiest (but ugliest) way is to just dump the number on screen, but obviously we don't want that.

[jakkos98]

Firstly it's awsome to see that developmet of this plane is still active (this is my first post here). Secondly I have no experience in devolopment for FlightGear (excepet some tries in creating liveries and adding existing gpsmap196 to aircrafts not equipped with it). Back to the topic. I like idea of adding force-feedback to yoke, maybe implementing system similar to Extra EA-500 pitch control (https://wiki.flightgear.org/Extra_EA-500/pitch_control) will be good idea if it's paussible with current systems in C182. In this implemetation yokes work in one of two modes which can be swiched freely by user: first where input device if directly controling elevator position (mode mainly for flying using mose or keyboard), and second where imput device is controling force applied to yoke (this mode force pilot to trim aircraft correctly). I hope I understood yours idea corectly as I am not native english speaker and I could help. Kind regards Jakub

[hbeni]

Yes, two modes are a good idea. The basic idea was to allow mouse users to have some feedback if the plane is trimmed correctly.

[HHS81]

@jakkos98 @hbeni

Firstly it's awsome to see that developmet of this plane is still active (this is my first post here).

Many thanks! 👍 Yes, but since this is not our main job- and we even don´t earn any money with - there will be phases with no active developement. Beside- it is already very, very far done.

Secondly I have no experience in devolopment for FlightGear (excepet some tries in creating liveries and adding existing gpsmap196 to aircrafts not equipped with it). Back to the topic. I like idea of adding force-feedback to yoke, maybe implementing system similar to Extra EA-500 pitch control (https://wiki.flightgear.org/Extra_EA-500/pitch_control) will be good idea if it's paussible with current systems in C182. In this implemetation yokes work in one of two modes which can be swiched freely by user: first where input device if directly controling elevator position (mode mainly for flying using mose or keyboard), and second where imput device is controling force applied to yoke (this mode force pilot to trim aircraft correctly). I hope I understood yours idea corectly as I am not native english speaker and I could help. Kind regards Jakub

I tried the EA-500. But never understood how to use the second mode. Force feedback without any FFB-yoke/ joystick on flightsims will be always challenging. I´m mainly interested in helicopters where using ffb would not only be helpful, but also needed for correct realistic trim and AP simulation. Unfortunately there is no ffb-devices out there, due patents.

For ffb there will be the calculation of forces needed. On real aircraft (heli or fixed-wing) the zone with zero forces isn´t the metric center of Stick/Yoke. The zone is changing, depending on aerodynamic loads. Luckily we have the real coeffcients for that, and somewhere I think I have seen how to implement them additionally to the fdm, so we even get a forces output (which could be theoretically wired to a ffb-device).

On the other side: since I started with FGFS back in 2006 it was always said, that any simulation of an aircraft should work with their real controls in every aspect. This was said, because indeed FGFS is used for professional simulation and training with more realistic hadware than our joysticks, mouse or yokes.

That´s why when someone will try to implement it, only if it is switchable.

[hbeni]

Also related: https://github.com/c172p-team/c172p/issues/1472