My Joystick or Yoke Isn’t Working
If the joystick and other flight controls appear to be configured correctly (according to the steps outlined in the article Configuring Flight Controls), but are not giving the desired response in the simulator, it’s time to troubleshoot. Thankfully, X-Plane makes it easy to find out how the software is perceiving the flight controls’ input.
In the following example we’ll assume that the plane’s pitch, yaw, and roll are not matching the way the joystick is being moved. A similar procedure may be used for other malfunctioning controls.
- Move your mouse to the top of the screen and open the Settings menu.
- Click Data Input & Output.
- Select the rightmost box next to joystick ail/elv/rud. This box will cause X-Plane to display the input it is receiving while running the simulation.
- Close the Data Input & Output window.
- A box in the upper right should be displaying the elev, ailrn, and ruddr commands (elevator, aileron, rudder, respectively) being received from the joystick.
- Now, center the stick and pedals. Each axis should indicate 0.0, or close to it.
- Move the stick full left. The ailrn should indicate – 1.0 or near – 1.0.
- Move the stick full right. The ailrn should indicate 1.0 or near 1.0.
- Move the stick full aft. The elev should indicate 1.0 or near 1.0.
- Move the stick full forward. The elev should indicate – 1.0 or near – 1.0.
- Move the rudder full left. The ruddr should indicate – 1.0 or near – 1.0.
- Move the rudder full right. The ruddr should indicate 1.0 or near 1.0.
By moving the stick and pedals and seeing what values they are sending X-Plane, you can see if X-Plane is getting proper stick input.
If the correct values (according to the tests above) are not being received in X-Plane, and you have calibrated the controls in X-Plane per the section “Calibrating the Hardware” of Chapter 4 of the X-Plane 10 manual, then the issue is with the hardware’s calibration in your operating system, not X-Plane. If the hardware is indeed calibrated correctly in the operating system, the hardware itself is malfunctioning. On the other hand, if the correct values from the above tests are being received, then the hardware is working fine.
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