03: Flight gear on the go

Sure you can fly using a keyboard, but it is a frustrating experience when you're used to a full flight yoke system with throttles and rudder pedals. Now the 757 did rather well on the system I was  prepared to spend €25 on a controller and bought the Speedlink XEOX Pro (right one on the photo). This is an exact copy of the Xbox 360 controller so it also has a lot of buttons that you can assign a function in the simulator. 

It works well and flying became enjoyable on this system. When I had to stay the night in a hotel in Brussels for my work I killed some hours before sleep flying the 757 with this controller. I even flew some IVAO flights and landings were smooth. It was however a bummer that windows did only detect one of the two joypads  on the controller. A solution to that is installing Xpaddr, a freeware yet verry effective program that does detect all your buttons and joypads on a controller and let's you assign functions to them. The right joypad was assigned as a  mouse with two other buttons function as left and right mouse buttons. This allowed me to change settings on the MCP and interact with other flight systems. Throttle/reverse thrust as well as flaps were assigned on the ABXY buttons and the left thumb joypad as a joystick to have control over the aircraft at all time. Another great feature of a controller is that you can assign a rudder axis so you'r able to keep the aircraft on the runway during takeoff and landing, or to taxi to and from the gate. 

However the Speedling Xeox is a great and inexpansive device that works well, I wouldn't recommend it for the simple fact that you're unable to upgrade the controller with a chatpad. There are however third party xbox 360 controllers that can be upgraded with a chatpad but these come from China and their quality is something one might have second thoughts about. please also note that Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 do not recognise the chatpad and that a unassigned third party driver is needed. This driver is know to give all kind of issues and on windows 8 and 8.1 your only able to use it if you start windows in a mode that allows you to use unassigned drivers. After a system reboot your settings will be lost and you have to start over. 

A more expansive but "less hassle" solution is to go the official Microsoft way and get an official Xbox One controller (for windows) and the chatpad. Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 do not detect this chatpad,  however Windows 10 does without the need for installing a driver. I have a wireless Xbox One controller with the chatpad  (left one on the photo) and it works so well that the keyboard is not used anymore during simming. Why press a "G" key on the keyboard while you have the gear lever control on your controller? (and other keyboard assignements you use during a flight).

Another benefit for not having to use a keyboard is that it is easier to connect your Surface Pro to a TV with HDMI cable. All you need is a Mini Display port to HDMI adapter and a cable to hook it up to your telly. These adapters can be obtained from any electronics store or for under $2 from China including chipping. 

Using the telly reduces the resolution of your sim, and your CPU will thank you for that and will reward you with some additional frames per second. Told you we were not there yet....