Flight Simulator X

[gadgetgeek]

My father has recently been bought Flight Simulator X for his laptop. Whilst he is able to fly with no problems he is unable to taxi the Microlight as it just goes in a straight line and not able to turn. I am 200 miles away so hard to work out what he needs to do as I do not own a copy of the game myself. Which keys should he be using (he also has a joystick plugged into his USB). Thank you for any help you can give my pilot wanna be father!

[SlackAlice]

Depends a lot on the Joystick. A proper flight stick has forward/back left/right movement as usual but the stick should have a 'twist' function.

Often called 'Z' rotation. This gives rudder action independent of banking. When your on the ground this also enables steering. Plug in usb stick, start game, go to settings, other settings, controls, calibration (ensure Enable Controllers is ticked and stick is identified correctly), click on calibrate and it should show if you've got 'Z' rotation for the stick.

If not, you can assign keyboard buttons for rudder movement by going back to Controls and selecting Buttons/Keys and editing them. I'm not sure but I think default keys for rudder controls were on the Numeric Keypad.

Best of Luck the Microlight/Ultralight is the easy one, it's a steep learning curve!
Suggest also your Father join a relevant forum for help and info, loads on assistance there as well.

[Toureman]

As Alice said it is best with a twist joystick but I have just tried it using the keyboard and if you use the 0 key on the numeric pad to turn left and the enter button on the numeric pad it will turn right, it works OK but you have to taxi very slowly.

I cannot remember if you have the number pad switched on or off but I think it is off!

Works with all aircraft in flight and taxi, hope he enjoys it as much as I do!.

[cainplant]

probably best if he switches to a more realistic one. here's a blog i found about my favorite simulator, everything it say's is accurate http://hubpages.com/hub/flight-simulations