Rudder And Brakes

My old Thrustmaster rudder control system had served me well for a lot of years but I decided to redesign them. This way I had a lot of prefab parts. I wanted the pedals to be suspended above the ground, just as in most aircraft. Having your heels on the ground and applying rudder with your toes. To use the brakes you have to place your feet a bit up the pedals and apply pressure to the top part to tilt the pedals. For instance the CH pedals are not correct in that sense. I used the original pedals but placed them on the opposite side from where they are originally. I put them almost vertically and up side down with the round part up. Pressing the top part would activate the brake. I also took part of the guidance out because it would interfere with my feet. I also placed the guidance more to the center for the same reason.

To elevate the metal construction, the rudder was mounted on blocks which in turn were attached to a base plate. You guessed it; 9 mm plywood. You can use heavier thicker wood for an even more stable base. Using a large gear wheel on the pedal and a very small one on the potentiometer just gave me enough degrees of movement to be able to use it. I created two stops in the metal base where the pedals were mounted. One stop for no brakes, one for maximux brakes. A spring on each pedal pulled it back to release the brakes.

I had two game pads in the yoke which both had a throttle function. These do not have a center position. The game pads are calibrated when they are connected. The software assumes the joysticks are in neutral position. A throttle can be anywhere so is calibrated according to its minimum and maximum values. So these can be used best for brake, since brakes do not need a center position. The rudder axis on the other hand does have a center position so this was connected to the x-axis of one of the rumble pad's joysticks. I used a 9 pin comm port like connector to connect the potentiometers of the rudder and brakes to the yoke box. FSUIPC can be used to adjust dead zones to make sure you are off the brakes when not touching the pedals.

The pedals as seen from the front. The base plate is quite big and long to stop it from tipping over when using the brakes. I cut out corners of the base plate so your heels can stay on the floor without them going over the edge of the wooden plate when applying rudder. There are rubber blocks on the bottom of the plate to stop it from sliding. These came with the pedals so I took them off and glued them to my base plate.

Detail of the potentiometer. (I still have to shorten the potentiometer axis.)

The bottom of the pedals is 7 cm above the base plate. Total width is about 49 cm. Quite wide but the pedals are actually far apart in a King Air.

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