ruby_monkey Posted October 22, 2018 Posted October 22, 2018 I currently use a couple of CH Pro throttle quadrants, giving me a dozen levers at my disposal and letting me cover all my throttle, prop pitch, mixture, and radiator/cowl flap needs. Lovely. However, anyone who has used CH Pro gear will know that, while the hardware is perfectly adequate, their control manager app is a right royal PITA to keep running on any remotely modern Windows install but running the hardware without it means that one has to give up a fair bit of assistance with calibration and virtual switches. Now I have looked (read: salivated) at some of the twin-engine throttles on the market like the VPC MongoosT-50, with which I could happily fly all the planes available to us except the Ju52/3. That damned trimotor throws off the easy left-right separation, but there's no way I'd want to go without her. So, all you Ju52 jockeys - what are you using to control all three throttles? What's out there besides the CH Pro units, or a whole bushel of Logitech quadrants, that'll allow me to manage three engines? Looking forward to your replies.
THERION Posted October 22, 2018 Posted October 22, 2018 Well, this is quite a tricky one... I've got the Tante JU of course. I use the Saitek Rhino X55 HOTAS, which has a dual throttle - this is fine for me as I mostly fly single engines or Russian twins. So one lever for engine 1 and the second for engine 2. Everything's fine. NOW - the beloved old lady has - as you already mentioned - 3 engines. OK, that's just another engine - BUT - this 3rd engine is actually designated as the engine number 2 in BOX! And now you see - here comes the shit. With a two lever throttle you are not in a comfortable situation, how are you going to control these 3 engines? Well, as a work-around for me (I know it's not historical nor technically correct) I assigned engine number 1 and 3 to the lever 1 and the 2nd engine to the lever 2. So this way I can control both outer engines with the lever 1 and the front engine with lever 2. As already mention in parentheses it is not technically correct, but I can live with that for the moment. And more important I can fly this beauty and eventually land her quite safely. Cheers P.S: Yes, I have a Saitek Throttle Quadrant (3 levers), which would perfectly match the needs for the JU-52, but I need this piece for RPM, water and oil radiator.
ruby_monkey Posted October 22, 2018 Author Posted October 22, 2018 Thanks for your reply. It's an approach that I've considered; but my difficulty with this is that the left and right throttles (apart from giving differential thrust for steering on the ground) also control differential braking. How do the Saitek/Logitech quadrants feel to you? I think I'll have to save up and send a big bag of money to GVL224.
BOO Posted October 22, 2018 Posted October 22, 2018 Same as Therion too The L/R braking drops the throttle on the left and right engines too so taxi-ing is pretty straight forward.
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