Simming La Vida Loca

I am motivated to write these articles due to the alarmingly high number of fellow flight-simmers who, after purchasing and installing their TIRs, are either not using them or have even returned them in disappointment. Unacceptable.

I never really got to fully enjoy flightsimming until I donned my TrackIR two years ago (and if you’ve read the About section you know I’ve been simming for more than twenty-five years). Panning via using the hat on the stick was so unnatural and clumsy that it could ruin the most hyper-realistic VC. I always ended up flying in external views, just to get me more visibility and some air!

But then, thank goodness, along came TrackIR, which must be the best single improvement for consumer flight-simulation in a long time (and will be, until decent VR goggles appear). Think about it: a direct off-spring of military technology, this little gadget (which some have found ridiculously flimsy after opening the box) can actually create truly intuitive VC immersion! Moreover, it somehow enlarges your screen. Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t see the point of installing three monitors to augment my viewing space. What for? By calibrating your tracker properly using curves (we’ll get to that later on) you can see the whole 360 degrees only by turning your head a little bit more.

Now, all this marvelous freedom comes with a price, and it’s not the tag price, which is, in my opinion, low. The price is that you must be patient and invest some time (days, weeks) into tweaking the tracker, understanding how it functions and how to make it work for you.

Now repeat after me:

TrackIRs DON’T WORK OUT-OF-THE-BOX.

That’s the secret. Get used to it and take the time to assimilate it (or let IT assimilate YOU). Once this period of adaptation is over you’ll forget it’s even there, and you’ll be enjoying your flying so much that you’ll never look back.

Now let’s begin to see how we can make the most out of it.

The most important aspect is this: interaction with the tracker. This thing is far from infallible, and gets uncalibrated easily. Let’s say you drop some Menthos onto the floor, so you get out of the tracker’s zone to pick them up. Oops. Your wife comes in to bring you tea and biscuits, your head makes a dramatic turn. There it went, out of calibration again! The way to manage this is to assign a prominent button in your stick or control column. When it happens, you just look ahead and press the RESET button. Presto! No swearing, etc. Another important function you need to assign an easy-access button to is the STAND-BY action, which tells the tracker to stop/resume its job. Learn to be preemptive and to disable tracking before you get out of the tracker’s sight. If you manage your aircraft fully from the VC, don’t try to keep your head steady while you battle with the mouse trying to reach buttons and levers. Just look into the general area in which the switch you need is located, press your STAND-BY button (to disable tracking) and go click, select, etc. at your discretion. You can even fine-pan with the old hat. Then press again and resume tracking. Check out how I’ve got my buttons set with my trusty Saitek X45s. I loose two important buttons, true (fasten seat-belts and no-smoking) but you know there ain’t free lunches, right?

Learn to RESET and STAND-BY methodically and automatically (if you want to be a pilot this should come as a handy exercise) and you are on the way of forging a beautiful friendship with your TrackIR.

More to come. Comments, doubts? Welcome.