chris2002rocklin

If you plan to keep the X45 throttle, then the AVRR01 is a good call, otherwise you want the X52, unless you want to give up the extended features of the Saitek HOTAS rigs. There is nothing even close for under $100 street, well over. You can get the X52 for ~$85 street in the US. I have all 3 of the models discussed, and I like the X45 best for feel, but the extra features of the X52 are worth getting. For you, it sounds like you'll appreciate them even more because they are a lot lighter. Contrast this with the X65 and you see why they felt OK about building the X52 so light.

What drivers are you using? What happens when you calibrate?

I used to play Falcon 3 and Falcon 4 "instant action" because I really got the computer and games for my son (in 1994, now he's in the Marines in Afghanistan) and I hadn't touched any games at all since last decade. I have some tech experience, and I found myself working in a massive history project and decided to pull together some video material for evidence to support these narratives. I am working on an analysis of the risks to western civilization posed by collectivist ideology. The Cold War and poor handling of multicultural training during the cold war have led to many people being uneducated about crucial facts that are needed to properly evaluate ones elected political leaders. One of the problems I am having is that people seem to need video to learn the importance of some events. I find that since gun cameras became ubiquitous in NATO war planes, most people have a good sense of the wars starting from June 5 1967. The problem is that this day is seen as evidence that Israel is an aggressive land-grabbing nation. They seem to think all of the problems in the middle east began on that day. It reminds me of my little sister who started her narratives from the moment after I blocked her punches. If you have a whiny voice, it even works for a while. This led me to put together as much material as I could gather about persecution in the middle east and western nations from as far back as I could go. I have lots of material but I want to add illustrations of some kind for the 1948 war for independence, and the Suez Crisis. Having seen History Channel's Dogfights series, I warmed up to the idea of doing a limited version of maybe at most 2 minutes of the Suez war, mostly using the POV of a jet and or a helicopter just to support the narrative. I also thought of illustrating some of the terror incidents too, but I haven't gotten that far. I think if I can get people to reboot their critical dates to examine history from where it actually began, that I will accomplish my goal. I looked on youtube to see which games had graphics that I thought I could work with, and Strike Fighters 2 Israel seemed perfect. I also like the looks of Lockon, but I wanted to start with SF2 because I know they have the terrain. I don't know where to go from here. I bought MS FSX so learn to fly more realistically and I can control the plane, and land, things like that. I need to learn how to build a mission and then maybe bomb some targets and complete an entire theoretical mission. I don't know how to find the help files or instructions to teach myself how to fly and set up missions in Strike Fighters 2. I once bought a Falcon 4 manual for my son, but I don't know where it is. What is the best source for its equivalent for someone wanting to learn without having anyone to teach me? Thanks! Chris

I downloaded this SF2 Expansion Pack 1 and ran the installer but there is nothing changed. I didn't see any new menu items in Windows, and I saw no changes in after launching SF2. There are no instructions or descriptions I can find. The dates for example still only go back to 1970s

"Use FSX" - Check! I got up to the 10th training mission without a separate throttle (I had a Saitek AV8R01 at first) and now since I got the X45 I can't get all the way through the 11th training mission with the chopper. It seems to be so peaky, all of the change occurs with the throttle right in there between 50% and 60% of the Z-axis. Ok, that is what I needed to verify. What really confused me was that every article I read referenced various things, but a lot of it left me wondering what precisely were my choices. I think at one point it looked like I needed SF1 to get Suez, which meant I need to build a dedicated machine for it. I'm starting to find more stuff here and there, and with the help from this thread, I think I am getting to where I need to go. If I can find my old Falcon 4 manual, I want to use that as a guide. I also want to see if there are vets who have suggestions for HOTAS configuration. I get the impression that you almost need to add these additional I/O devices as you add more realism to the flight model. How can anyone dogfight without a throttle axis? Thank you for your help!

Thank you. I hope he'll be back by summer, but things in that whole region seem to me more likely to get much worse than better. Syria and Saudi Arabia might go too, and who knows what Iran will do? I got SF2 Israel, and I was never quite sure if that is different from getting the expansion pack. I want to buy the expansion pack as soon as I am sure I don't have it already. Thanks again, Chris

You guys are great! Those are excellent suggestions. I think some of my difficulty is not realizing that with the pixel resolution so fine, that I am really needing to get my glasses fixed! I can't easily read the gauges at 1920*1200. I must have been used to VGA or SVGA at best, and my eyes were also in better shape. So the instruments in the cockpit more more detailed, and the game display has less info. I see that there is enough info to learn to fly by relying on the key charts and the real-world performance of the gear. I got a used X45 rig, and man that thing is so cool. I read a review of the X45, X52 and X65, plus the 2 Thrustmaster HOTAS products, and for $82, the X52 seems so cheap! So when I saw that I needed hands on the throttle to fly effectively, I thought I should test to make sure it was worth spending the money on a nice system. The X45 has no support documents on Saitek's web site and lots of sellers are selling "as is." I just couldn't believe that a HOTAS rig that lights up fine would not be worth at least $25 even if one was bad, my prediction was that if there was any problem, it was mostly likely the hardware configurations. Once I dug around, and I verified on Windows compatibility page that they link to Saitek after affirming Win7 64-bit, but it dumps you to the pages with all of the drivers. What they did was place new products in a sort by division "pro flight" and then categories for other accessories like mice, webcams etc. But I then found another way to choose by type, and they had joysticks all lumped together for any product with X-Y axis. They did have drivers specific to the model, OS and 64-bit variant. What's more is that the current driver is far superior to the previous drivers when the product was current. It has the entire feature set you'd expect. If anyone is having troulbe with X45 or wants to grab a set off ebay, prices might go up if people start finding out about this. Thanks for all of your suggestions. Right now, I am reading up on mods and various add-on thirdwire products to get me as close to Suez Crisis of 1956 as possible. I will build an XP machine if I have to, but I want to see how far I can go with Win7. I assume the extra RAM helps performance. I use 10GB. I'd like to ask one other question, or make that 2 as I have a suggestion question too. What products will also get more flexible mission build editors, or any kind of tools to help my reenactment? Second, I notice that my X45 rig has 3 8-way hi-hats (that is a drum type, I forgot what they are called in Joystick..top hats?), 2 rotary pots with center indent. a 3-position slider (not counting the 3-position slider for modes) and sever extra buttons and triggers. My suggestion is to have a thread with veterans sharing some of their suggested HOTAS configurations. It seems like something that experience will inform much better than a newb who brainstorms it alone, and I would think it would be hard to unlearn later when I realize how stupid my original config was! Some of the ideas I have are to use the mode switch to segregate the target type (ground and air) since I have 2 trigger, allowing me to assign one to the canon, thereby allowing me to leave my other weapon cycle to remain on missiles or A2G. But I also had an idea that if I learn more about RADAR, I might want to use modes for that, which if I understand correctly can do both? I think the Saitek software has extensive macro support, but would this be advisable? As I collect my training answers from you guys, I want to include some notes on that, and actually all of the advice here with my exhortation to get the HOTAS(!), and I hope some suggestions for configurations. I am also looking in to simple DIY ideas, not look the amazing instrument replications I have seen, but maybe something very basic like a dedicated keyboard so that I can assign macros to only that keyboard rather than ANY connected keyboard. If not a keyboard, some other affordable controller to allow customizing it. I saw a keyboard template somewhere, so at least I have a good leg up thanks to all of you guys. The page for Saitek drivers is here; http://www.saitek.com/uk/down/drivers.php and the left side has "range" but only seems to have current products, while the right side has "type" with X45 being under joystick (not Pro Flight, even though newer HOTAS rigs are there). The server scripts are buggy and take several minutes between the selection and presenting the next pull-down menu, but eventually you will get there. If it is really bad, I have X45 64-bit plus the Profile Editor that works on all of their products. Today it works great though (I wrote them so maybe they fixed it). Thanks again guys! Another PS; I got Lock-on Flaming Cliffs 2 bundle and I have a terrible time with configuring my controls. It also does strange stuff with multi-monitor where you have to have the window in focus for controls to work. It's also as resource-dependent as FSX if not more so.

I'm a newb with SF2 Israel, and it is very cool, much nicer graphics than any sim I have use (which means none recent). I decided to get an X45 HOTAS rig from ebay, and I love it. It was hard to find the drivers on Saitek, the script seems to have huge latency issues, you think it is done with nothing for you and I finally got X45 Windows 7 64bit drivers even though a search for X45 on the site returns NO HITS! What I really love is the throttle has rudder control using 2 fingers and pots (not switches), but I have a lot of other controls that have no assignment and it seems like there should be some good advice from users who know some of the best suggestions. I'm trying to put some thought in to it, like the 3-modes can toggle between air to air, air to ground and recon maybe, or I'm not sure...the Joystick has 2 triggers, so that one is dedicated to the gun. I use the top buttons to toggle which AA missiles, things like that, but I haven't figured out the radar controls yet and I thought maybe there is a typical HOTAS configuration with sage advice on having the radar controls on it? If anyone needs help with a Saitek driver, let me know and I'll help you find it. It's a complex menu that is not intuitive at all. I'm also seriously thinking that if there is more dedicated hardware, I would pay for a radar control console for sure!

Great stuff! I've done the first 20 missions in FSX, and I have a used Saitek X45 on the way from an ebayer (the Saitek AV8R has clumsy throttle locations) and I got my first gun kill in a Strike Fighters 2 mission, but I need to figure out how to select missiles, just the mundane stuff that I guess I will write notes on my impediment and then search, etc, groping in the dark. Someone could probably put together a coherent kit for fighter training, a brief generic version of the Falcon 4 manual. I need to find that thing...I think I won't mind which plane I learn on, because I want to be able to lean any of the western fighters, and flying Russian planes would be cool too. Thanks for the lists, I'll keep reading.

I feel like such a moron, and needing glasses is hardly an excuse, but I thought I could track message threads by URLs from the email confirmations, and I started a thread that I can't find in my email or in the forum here. Is there a way to search for my threads by using my username for example? It didn't work in the search box I found. Sorry guys and gals