If you’re moving from being a casual gamer to a serious flight simulator enthusiast, then you also need to have a serious look at your simulator controls. Its ok to use a keyboard and mouse when you are just learning and not serious about flying properly, but when you’re ready to go to the next level, you should upgrade your controls. There are three levels of controls that you can progressively add to your setup as you get closer and closer to the ultimate home cockpit and the best level of realism possible.
The first thing to do is obviously get a flight simulator yoke and throw away the keyboard and mouse – actually you need to keep them for your normal computer work, but get them out of the way when you’re flying. Controlling an aircraft with a yoke is a totally different experience to fumbling around trying to find the right key to push on the keyboard. Imagine the feeling of pulling the yoke back as your take off in control of your aircraft, compared to pushing a key on the keyboard. But wait, before you go out and purchase a flight simulator yoke, you should know that not all aircraft use a yoke and in some jets the flight stick has replaced the yoke. For example, the Airbus and modern fighter jets use a stick instead of a yoke. So, you should have an idea of what aircraft you want to fly, before deciding on getting a yoke. For the most realistic flying experience in an Airbus A380, you would get a joystick, as that is the closest we can get to the flight stick actually used in the A380 cockpit.
The second level of realism is to add rudder pedals. The rudder pedals are used for braking by using the toe brakes and of course are used for coordinated turns. Again the feeling of using a control as it is in the cockpit cannot be compared to using a keyboard. As you turn the yoke and coordinate the turn with the rudder pedals, you could easily forget that you are in your own home and not actually in a cockpit. Pressing a key on the keyboard to control the rudder or brakes is just not a realistic experience.
The third level of realism is to add a control panel, such as a throttle quadrant to the yoke / stick and rudder pedals. A throttle quadrant will let you control not only the throttle but also some of the other vital controls. The control panels usually are programmable, and allow you to assign different controls to the switches, buttons and levers. For example, you could assign the buttons to controls such as the prop pitch, fuel or flaps.