I have a long and rocky sporadic history with flight sim games. In addition to IL-2, I own (assuming I could still dig up the CDs) Microsoft Flight Simulator-X, Battle of Britain (interesting combined strategic bombing campaign + aerial combat game published by Matrix Games), F-16 Flying Falcon, and at least one or two others. I even let myself get suckered into buying some recently published garbage aracdy Pacific War game for a couple bucks a few months back.

The fact is, I love the idea of playing the role of a pilot in a video game.

I bought a Saitek X-## (52 I want to say).

I figured out how to get it to stick to my lapboard (I've used a lazy boy, lapboard and wireless mouse+keyboard as my play / work-station for years) by clipping a piece of plexiglass to the lapboard so the suction cups would stick.

But I never seemed to get "good" at them. It always seemed to me like the joystick was not stable enough and any serious maneuvers would lead it to jiggle around and before long I was getting shot down . . .

I did manage to get reasonably proficient with landing and taking off in MS Flight Sim X. I even completed a few of the instrument landing missions. But I really only managed this by virtue of what I'd call the most intense, focused almost unfun style of "play" I've ever experienced in a computer game.

It always seemed to me that, what I REALLY needed was a mockup cockpit, with a stick that was ANCHORED into a solid cockpit floor/wall and with pedals and a seat that were also SOLID.

So what brings me here today is that I've been reinstalling all my old GOG games onto my hot new gaming rig and IL-2 was among them. Hadn't played it for years.

I seem to recall it used to be possible to play this with only a keyboard and mouse?

I've been fiddling with it for a couple hours and I just cannot get the hang of flying with only keyboard. My plane always seems to want to roll left-ish and pitch down. The trim keys, no matter how I set them, don't really seem to do anything.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I have mixed feelings about digging out my old Saitek stick and plugging it in. I seem to recall it was finicky and troublesome to setup and configure when it was new out of the box, much less after having sat idle for years in a dusty cardboard box.

Any words of wisdom?

Should I just accept that I either don't have the technical or gaming skills to be a good enough air warfare gamer to enjoy myself and just shelve these old things? Or am I going about this the wrong way?

An aircraft banking either left or right and going up/down on it's own is a normal situation.

Banking left/right is caused by the propeller and the engine shaft spinning at high speeds. Think about helicopters - if they didn't have tail rotor, they would spin like crazy. Now, same thing but to a much lesser degree, happens with airplanes with propellers. When the propeller spins right, the plane gets pushed a bit to the left along the engine axis.
Going up or down is, I think, caused by different amount of lift generated by the wings at different speeds.

To counter them, you usually use trims. The catch is, that not every plane has trims on all control surfaces. Most Allied fighter planes in IL-2 1946 only have elevator and rudder trim, but no ailerons. German 109s or 190s only have elevator and even no rudder (in reality, it was set on ground before taking off). Some planes may have no control surface trims at all.

So, you usually need to trim it AND counter with the stick at the same time.


The Saitek X52 (and Saitek in general) has some nice profiling software available on Saitek site. It alows to set 3 different modes using the rotary on top of the stick, and "shift" every button using one particular button, which allow to theoretically bind up to 6 actions to every button.

I've started playing IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 when I already had a joystick, so I can't say if it's completely not possible to play with just keyboard+mouse, but I'd never go back to just buttons. Right now I have X52 Pro and it has served me with no problems for 2 years so far.

Thanks for the words of wisdom Minamir!

Yep, now that you describe it, the up and side drift makes total sense. Which only further confirms to me that attempting to excel at a flight sim with anything except a stick (if not also a throttle and/or pedals! too!) is in vain.

I dug up my X52 stick and plugged it in and installed the software. But I cannot find the throttle and the other cable that goes between them. If memory serves it is generally the throttle that gets plugged into the computer, and the stick plugs into the throttle?

My machine doesn't seem to recognize the stick without the throttle so I guess I need to either find the rest of my gera or buy a new one or let my aspirations to be a fighter ace fade once more into obscurity.

You're welcome!

Yes you're right, only the throttle has standard USB connector, and the joystick itself needs to be connected to the throttle using detachable cable. If you misplaced the original one, try looking for a standard PS/2 to PS/2 cable, male on both ends. The connector looks like the cable on old keyboards an mouses. Try looking in local electronic and cable stores, or just order something like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M9431

Edit: oops, now I see that you miss the throttle, not just the cable. Unfortunately, I think it's not possible to use just the stick alone, at least not without a lot of DIY-work with replacing the electronics.

I got my old Saitek X-52 gear reinstalled. Had to rummage through a room full of boxes containing post-academic remains to find my throttle, and an adapter-extension to have a USB cord long enough to plug it in. I've got so many Goddamned cables. I could probably start up my own electronics shop . . .

So I got MS Flight Sim X installed and also been playing a bit more Il-2 1946.

It was quite edifying, I zipped through the first half-dozen 'tutorial' missions of MS FSX without a single mistake (well I did get off the concrete a bit while taxing the DC-10 when my wife was asking me questions about taking pictures of Yellowstone from the air). But I found my controls to be stable, smooth, predictable and amazingly easy.

IL-2 on the other hand I find to be a goddamn nightmare. WHY!? do they have trim settings for rudder, ailerons AND elevator? Is not elevator enough? That seems to be the only trim settings in FSX.

I tried using the throttles "X-slider" for elevator and that worked good (the one at the thumb). There are two twisty knobs on it, one it calls a Y and the other a Z when I try to configure it in the Il-6 controls window. I was able to do a few flights and in those it even seemed like my adjustments of aileron trim using the "Y-axis" (of the throttle) worked fine. I could adjust it and get it to level out and stop banking.

Then I turned it all off, slept, got up and tried to play it again (a different mission) and suddenly every time I take off I'm desperately trying to keep my aircraft from yawing dramatically right! No amount of fiddling and twisting on the knob stops it.

I don't know whether to give up on IL-2 (I bought it off GOG for like $5 so it wouldn't be a huge loss) or whether I might be able to get more consistent performance if I dig up one of those "pre-made profiles" for using the X-52 with Il-2?

One thing I like about FSX is it, has plenty of learning material to help you build up mastery and I'm confident the controls are working like they are supposed to. IL-2 not so much.

Any suggestions?

Any suggestions on a good modern combat air sim that I might not have these troubles with and which does a good bit of 'hand holding' to teach you how to fly the way FSX does?

Well, as I mentioned not all aircraft have aileron trim. Most fighter planes of the WW2 ere do not have them. Try with rudder trim. Some planes might lack even rudder trim, so you have to counter it on your own.

Also, the game might "forget" some of the joystick/throttle mappings (button and axis) if you connect another controller like a gamepad or racing wheel, as it might cause Windows to renumber the devices. After that, you'd have to assign the axes again.

It's also important to set custom axis sensitivity. Can't recommend anything specific, as it varies greatly with different joysticks and user preferences. Look somewhere in the settings (don't have the installed right now) and there you can set sensitivity per every axis, set deadzones and smoothing etc.

As for premade profiles, I'd suggest making your own. If there's something still on the Saitek site, it's probably outdated, as the game received several patches which introduced new functionalities. You also have to assign a good number of functions on your own, as by default there are no buttons assigned for some of the frequently used ones. After several flights, preferably with different planes, you should get a feeling of what you wan on on joystick and on keyboard. Modern as in released recently, or with modern planes?

If it's the former, there are newer IL-2 titles, named Cliffs of Dover and Battle of Stalingrad. Not sure about tutorials for them, and the learning curve is probably similar to the old 1946. There's also more arcade War Thunder, which is online-only MMO-like, with unlocks, experience etc, but on the other hand it has very eye-candy graphics.