Mixture Control

[HumanDrone 4]

My dear fellow aviators:

 

I'm learning more about setting up my Saitek X-52 with all it's buttosn and slides and wheels and such ('way to many for WWI planes!), and it has occurred to me that the thumb slide on the throttle would be a great place to put the mixture (I know, just fly auto mixture!). But in the Saitek profile editor I have to split the range into bands, or something, in order to do this... Hmm wait, maybe this won't work... It'd have to be CTRL+ going rich and CTRL- going lean... dang. There should be a way to do this, but maybe I'm limited by the keyboard interface the original programmers were limited by.

 

I was going to ask how many CTRL+ or CTRL- does it take to go from full lean to full rich, and split the slide into that many bands, but I don't think thta will work. I guess I'll go ahead and post this and see if anyone has any better ideas. Same idea was going to be applied to prop pitch in sims tha have planes with varaible pitch props...

 

Anyway, thanks all, for your time. Mods may move if I've put this in the wrong place.

 

Tom

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Tom, it is tricky to have your mixture control in CFS3 mapped to a slide control because of how the sim interprets the inputs. I messed around with this quite a bit after I had built my set-up and here is what I have settled upon, (and you are correct about needing to split the control into bands). In your Saitek profile editor create a new profile for OFF and assign the buttons you wish to use to your battery on-off, mags on-off, start switch etc. Then, when you get to the slide control you wish to use for mixture divide it into three bands: 0-40%, 40-60%, and 60-100%. Next, assign functions as follows: CTRL+= to the 0-40% band, (mixture rich); CTRL+- to the 60-100% band, (mixture lean); and make the 40-60% band a dead zone, (i.e. no assignment). This will allow you a rudimentary mixture control by parking the slider in the middle of it's travel and then from there you "bump" either up or down to make the mixture either richer or leaner respectively, always bringing the slider back to middle after each bump. I should note that I am using a Saitek AV8R-01 stick with dual slide controls which I have customized for my "cockpit" by building a new housing to relocate the sliders to the left side of the keyboard. Also, you might have to reverse the top and bottom band assignments for your slider depending on what the default range is for it, (i.e. 0-to-100% or 100-to-0%), because you will want mixture to go richer when you bump the slider forward and leaner when you bump it back.

 

 

 

 

 

One further caution, always make sure you return the slider to it's dead zone elsewise you will start to have odd control glitches and hang-ups because you will constantly be sending an input from whichever band assignment you left the slider in. I have been flying with my current configuration for a while now and I really like how the mixture control works as it has just enough of the "fiddling around" factor to make it feel historically proper for a WWI kite.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

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[Olham 164]

Lou, I knew your set up already from earlier photos, but now I noticed that stop watch.

A nice detail for collecting your correct flight times, I guess?

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Actually Olham, it is an original RFC Mark IV A cockpit watch, number N4752 AG. Still in fine working condition, I use it to keep track of my in-flight times.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm all about the immersion you know.

 

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[von Baur 54]

From one Tom to another,

 

If you can't assign a slider or a wheel using the stick's software there might be an easier solution. Simply assign the incremental lean and enrich commands each to its own button. Then, as you increase your altitude, lean your mixture until your engine just starts to cut out at which point you quickly enrich it a few notches. I used that method for a couple years, until I got my current stick which allowed me to map it to a wheel, and it worked very well. I've found that, generally speaking, you should lean it around 4,000-5,000 feet and again between about 7,000 and 9,000. I've rarely gone above 11,000-12,000, so the second usually keeps me in good shape to that altitude. But the best and probably most realistic way to know when it's time to adjust your mixture is simply to keep an eye on your RPM's. Note what it is when you set your throttle and when you see it running a couple hundred lower, it's time to make an adjustment. My father, who flew B-17's and B-24's in WWII as well as flying until the late 1960's, told me that that was the common method because each plane (and indeed each engine) behaves differently. The one real drawback to that is that if you set a flight to start at 10,000 feet or above you probably won't be able to lean it sufficently before it cuts out entirely, so you'll want to set any QC missions to start at 5,000 or below.

 

As far as the sticks having so many buttons, sliders and wheels, use what you can to compensate for anything you see as a deficiency of flying on a computer instead of real life. The rest, leave alone.

 

 

Welcome to yesterday.

[Olham 164]

 

Actually Olham, it is an original RFC Mark IV A cockpit watch, number N4752 AG. Still in fine working condition, I use it to keep track of my in-flight times.

I'm all about the immersion you know.

Lou, I love to see, how immersion means for you to get as close to history as you can.

And this RFC watch is a lucky one - it will not be lying in some museums drawers, waiting to get exposed

some day that may never come - it is still getting used! I love it!

 

And these cockpit watches were expensive, valuable parts back in those days.

Cecil Lewis or Arthur Gould Lee - one of them took the cockpit watch from the special wooden casing,

before he left his wrecked aircraft, and he wanted to keep it as a memory.

Only one or two days later he received a written order, to return the cockpit watch!

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Yes Olham, it was literally a standing order that RFC and RNAS pilots bring back the cockpit watch should their planes go down somewhere other than their aerodromes. Imagine being forced to land in the front lines and having to concern yourself with prying the bloody watch from the dash whilest dodging MG fire from the nasties across the way. But woe unto the pilot who came home without said watch. It was damned near a court martial offense.

 

And glad to know you like my little bit of working history, mein Freund.

 

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[Burning Beard 14]

I have an X52 and to have the mixture set to the thumb slider. I set this up in the controls section of OFF, I do not use the Saitek software. In All Commands for Mixture 1 (I think this is for a multiple engines, but I only use one engine) it reads axis slider. When I push it forward it leans the engine, back makes it richer. It is also and easy way to kill the engine when ending a flight. When leaning the engine in flight make sure you watch the tachometer, when you lean it to far the revs fall off to the point it will eventually kill the engine.

 

Beard

[HumanDrone 4]

Well, thank you all, as usual, a great bunch, but Burning Beard has me curious! & RAF_Louvert, that is a sweet watch and a nice setup!

 

I have an X52 and to have the mixture set to the thumb slider. I set this up in the controls section of OFF, I do not use the Saitek software. In All Commands for Mixture 1 (I think this is for a multiple engines, but I only use one engine) it reads axis slider. When I push it forward it leans the engine, back makes it richer. It is also and easy way to kill the engine when ending a flight. When leaning the engine in flight make sure you watch the tachometer, when you lean it to far the revs fall off to the point it will eventually kill the engine.

 

Beard

 

I'd sure like to see the particulars of how you did this. It sounds exactly like what I want to do! Did you make an entry in the CFS3.XCA file, or how did you do this?

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Thanks for the kudos on my set-up and watch Tom. I hope you get your controls tweaked to your liking.

 

BB, I would also very much like to know how you managed to map the mixture controls to a slider as you describe. In my feeble efforts I couldn't sort it out. Please enlighten us Sir.

 

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[Burning Beard 14]

Okey Dokey guys, this is how I did it.

 

Start a Quick Combat, hit pause and escape, that will give you the pull down menu. Select Controls from the pull down and that will open the Controls Settings Menu.

 

I the Event Category window, select All Commands, then scroll down the list to "Mixture 1 Axis" (this is not available in the engine commands list). Click on Mixture 1 Axis and that will light up the Add Assignment button. When you hit Add Assignment another window will open up asking you to select a button (or some such thing) just move the slider and it will pop up in the little box if available. Hit save and that box will close.

 

Then in the Event Category window you must click Save the Configuration. You do this in the top window by selecting "Mine" I believe that is one of three choices, the others being CFS3 and Flight Simulator.

 

This is what I use for all my commands on the X52, I do not use the software that came with the stick.

 

Good Luck

Beard

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Oh Bubala, I give to you large kiss! I cannot tell you how many ways I haved messed about trying to get the mixture lever to do exactly that. I did have to use the 'Mixture Axis' rather than the 'Mixture 1 Axis', but it all works! A very big THANK YOU! , oh wise and wonderful BB.

 

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[Burning Beard 14]

Glad I could be of assistance.

 

Beard

[HumanDrone 4]

You know, Burning Beard, after I considered your first reply, I went looking, and found it. Fantastic, and I thank you! Then I checked back this AM and you had posted exactly what I found. What's interesting besides the mixture is that there appears to be settings for both prop pitch and prop rpm (for, obviously, more sophisticated aircraft than these). Now pitch I can understand, but I've never heard of setting prop rpm. Unless you had a transmission or fluid drive like the hydrostatic drive on my tractor, how would the prop rpm not be the same as the engine rpm?

 

Confused,

 

Tom

 

(hope you get your beard put out, that could be painful!)