X-52 Pro Profiles & Tutorial Flights

[Bman. 1]

Evening all-

I have been checking out the videos that Cody and others have made. The F-16 looks like a great product. I have a couple of questions.

1) Has anyone made a decent profile for the X-52 Pro and this plane? The reason I ask is that I am a GA fan at heart and have been flying with my CH yoke 95% of the time. When acceleration came out, I decided to get the X-52 Pro. I had a hard time setting up my controller to something that felt comfortable. However, I am certain this was partially do to the fact that I didn't know everything the F-18 from MS had to offer... now, the same thing applies to the F-16. This leads me to my second question.

2) Are there any good tutorial videos that some has put together to run through configurations of the aircraft in general. I am no stranger to a manual (I've been working that Level D over!) but what really started pulling the aircraft systems together was the combination of the book and Angle of Attack videos. I doubt there is anything produced to that level like Chris Palmers videos but even something running through a flight with the MFD.

This looks promising!

Benjamin.

[riderguy 0]

I too have been hoping for some good profiles for the X-52. I purchased the F-16, TrackIR 4 Pro and the X52 Pro at the same time for some fun F16 flying. I find the X-52 seems to "drop" the text in its MFD when I run F16 with the few changes I've made. I don't know if it is a software bug or a conflict, thus I too was hoping someone had a good profile for the joystick.

Keeping my fingers crossed,

Riderguy

<<1) Has anyone made a decent profile for the X-52 Pro and this plane? The reason I ask is that I am a GA fan at heart and have been flying with my CH yoke 95% of the time. When acceleration came out, I decided to get the X-52 Pro. I had a hard time setting up my controller to something that felt comfortable. However, I am certain this was partially do to the fact that I didn't know everything the F-18 from MS had to offer... now, the same thing applies to the F-16. This leads me to my second question.>>

[Razgriz 0]

I too have been hoping for some good profiles for the X-52. I purchased the F-16, TrackIR 4 Pro and the X52 Pro at the same time for some fun F16 flying. I find the X-52 seems to "drop" the text in its MFD when I run F16 with the few changes I've made. I don't know if it is a software bug or a conflict, thus I too was hoping someone had a good profile for the joystick.

Keeping my fingers crossed,

Riderguy

<<1) Has anyone made a decent profile for the X-52 Pro and this plane? The reason I ask is that I am a GA fan at heart and have been flying with my CH yoke 95% of the time. When acceleration came out, I decided to get the X-52 Pro. I had a hard time setting up my controller to something that felt comfortable. However, I am certain this was partially do to the fact that I didn't know everything the F-18 from MS had to offer... now, the same thing applies to the F-16. This leads me to my second question.>>

I have one, I can fix it up and post it.

[riderguy 0]

I have one, I can fix it up and post it.

Looking forward to it. Thanks!!

Riderguy

[Vigilius 1]

Yes, thank to post it

[Padesatka 0]

I'm also working on X-52 Pro profiles. I've only had these controls a few days, and I started right in with what turned out an easy and satisfying hardware mod: Where your thumb rests on the X-52P stick, there's ample room inside for another switch. I drilled a hole, installed a nice clicky 4-pole momentary (off center A up B down) switch. Opening the handle and base (8 screws total) I routed the wires down through, and soldered them onto the T4 and T6 switchboards in the base, which are easy to access and solder to. It really was a surprisingly simple project, and I highly recommend it. I also removed the ski-pole finger-guard by unfastening it. I took a chunk of that nonsense, and I covered the bare metal that was exposed at the top by its removal. Then I glued the remaining lower hand rest in place where it was comfortable to my hand (gluing only to the right side of the stick for future access inside). A small tab remained in front of thepinky switch, and I cut that away with the soldering iron (this can be downe neatly with a steady hand). I used black Performix "Liquid Tape" (sturdy and matches the finish) to make a secure attachment for the handrest on the stick. These mods were much simpler than writing profiles, and they have yielded what I consider a very businesslike HOTAS setup- for considerably less money than the Cougar (which is even closer to the F-16 form factor, but IMO the Saitek is more comfy). I may still add a paddle switch in front of the pinky switch in the future. The idea is to get the switch functions on the stick base well into hand (more cool factor is OK too).

But I'm finally getting around to profiling, now that I've gotten those first orgies of flying with new controls out of my system. I'm very satisfied with the smoothness and accuracy of the X-52P, having suffered with/worn out a lot of cheaper joysticks. I also am using a Wiimote/Freetracker head tracking setup, that has also greatly enhanced my flight sim experience. I won't be programming many view controls: Once you have experienced good head-tracking in a sim, you never want to go back to fumbling buttons for views.

It's fitting to use military examples for inspiration writing HOTAS profiles, so I've been doing some research before going too far setting up profiles. Because simulations like FSX don't involve much weaponry, there is a lot of untapped switching capability. What I hope to enable (in addition to customary stuff) are easy heading, altitude and frequency inputs to the various virtual avionics. I'm also hoping to program beta/reverse on the throttle axis. The throttle's linear thumb slider seems best for speed brakes, since we don't have flight computers managing intermediate deployment (SB is just on/off on most real HOTAS I've looked at).

At the moment, I'm just plodding through getting to know Saitek's none-too-friendly Profile Editor, while doing yet another tedious clean install of FSX- I went nuts with cheap/freeware sceneries, that have (of course) gotten all fouled up (I'll be sticking with quality products like AeroSoft from now on).

I've been doing more virtual flying lately, due to time & money constraints on my real-life flying pursuits (I'm a starving Flight INstructor). Getting things set up satisfactorily has a lot of similarities to real-world aviation: Considerably more time & money is inevitably involved, than first budgeted. Lots of fun, though. Anyway (a bit wordy my first post here) cheers all, I'll be watching this thread, and I'll try and share a .pr0 file or two here when I have something satisfactorily working.