In rec.aviation.student Dudley Henriques wrote:
Michael Ash wrote:
In rec.aviation.student Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Yes. I've trid it and the home sim feedback systems are a joke. Even
sophisticated sims aren't great this way and I still can't see even the
most sophisticated sims being anything more than an aid in teaching
procedures.

Seems like you ought to be able to get a fairly decent setup by using
bungees to center the stick and having some motors on the bungees. Move
them around to change the center if needed, tighten them to provide more
recentering force at high speed. Anyone know how the real force feedback
systems work and why my idea doesn't?

Wouldn't be worth the trouble. No matter what you do with force
feedback, unless you can come up with a way to duplicate the effect of
dynamic pressure on control surfaces based on a varying airspeed and air
density table, and for a specific aircraft to boot....you can't
duplicate actual control pressures for a desk top simulator.

I imagine you could do a fairly decent job. A sim such as X-Plane has much
of the data needed to come up with the right numbers. But then again, I
don't know whether this is "fairly decent" as in something which just
deceives you, or as in something which is actually worthwhile. In any case
it's somewhat academic, since if the software doesn't support it then
there's no point in having the hardware, and if there's no hardware the
software won't support it....

If even the big iron sims don't do a good job, it should be a good
indication that this problem is harder than it looks from the outside.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software