Looking for some input

[BSchuster]

 Its great to be back to AH. I made the choice to walk away from A/H. Just felt to do this right. The game needed more time than I had available. Fast forward a few years. Machinist by trade. Id had enough making chips. I walked away from the mill and into retirement! Enough of that....

 I've the CH flight control set up. My question. What commands do you want on your controls? Whats best left on the keyboard?
 Thanks for any help.
 Brian....

[Dobs]

Basic guide is "what do I NOT want to be reaching for in the heat of combat"?  That is what you NEED on your stick.

After that it is space available for buttons for what you want for convenience sake.

I have WEP, Flaps, Zoom toggle, ZOOM in/out, views, Dive recovery flaps/dive brake, secondary weapon toggle (as NEEDs), and then Clipboard, map zoom, Combat trim toggle, mic switches for radio channel (s), gear and few other as  "nice to haves".

[FLS]

You don't have to map everything all at once. It's easy to map AH controls in flight while offline or in the training arena.

You want the controls you use the most, like views, to be easy to reach and use. You need an "up" view to modify your views so you need to easily use both at the same time. Flaps, auto pilot modes, weapon selection and fire, zoom, 2 radio switches for voice, WEP, RPM, engine, landing gear and clipboard will get you started.

Be sure to assign each axis and calibrate each axis separately in the controller mapping. Check for spurious mappings like guns assigned to rudder pedal brakes.

Consider a powered USB hub for the controllers.

[Bizman]

I think a couple of the most important ones haven't been mentioned yet: Roll, Pitch for the stick, Fire Primary weapon either on the stick or the throttle, Throttle for the throttle, Yaw for the pedals.

[Ack-Ack]

Its great to be back to AH. I made the choice to walk away from A/H. Just felt to do this right. The game needed more time than I had available. Fast forward a few years. Machinist by trade. Id had enough making chips. I walked away from the mill and into retirement! Enough of that....

 I've the CH flight control set up. My question. What commands do you want on your controls? Whats best left on the keyboard?
 Thanks for any help.
 Brian....

If you have a CH HOTAS setup (CH Combat Stick/Fighterstick, CH Pedals, Pro Throttle), I would recommend that you map as much as you can to your joystick and throttle and only
leave the keyboard for typing in chat or for certain .dot commands like .salvo and .delay.  Ideally, you want spend less time hunting and pecking on the keyboard as much as possible.

[popeye]

Adding to what others have recommended, I have a throttle switch set to send a "check six" and also to cycle through the icon modes (I find it useful to be able to quickly check what planes friendlies are flying).

Also, you can map the keyboard spacebar to an often-used command since it is easy to find in the heat of battle (I use it for "range" vox).

[Wiley]

The specifics Dobs, FLS and Bizman are all stuff I use.

After that, I think it's a matter of playing for a while and finding out what you get sick of reaching for the keyboard for.

Wiley.

[Randy1]

You can have as many as 4 buttons for communicating.
vox like squad or mission
range
team speak
voice attack

One point for sure is copying someone else's button settings rarely works.

[BuckShot]

Good advice from these guys.

I have look-up and look-down buttons on my throttle. When used in conjunction with the hat switch, you get lots of view options.

Save things used once per flight like landing gear for the keyboard.

If you have room on the stick, a button for primary guns is nice. It allows you to fire only cowl machine guns to get a guy to turn, them let 'em have it with cannon only (secondary), or everything (trigger).

[BSchuster]

Thank you gentlemen. Your suggestions are of great help!

[Delirium]

I would add one more suggestion from my time as a Trainer.

Put as much of the commonly used buttons or commands on the throttle, rather than the stick. Your stick hand is doing most of the labor and the user is best minimizing that labor to the greatest extent possible. Some of my student have even placed the gun/fire controls on the throttle like the Japanese did in some of their aircraft. It has the added benefit of reducing the joystick inputs if the user has a habit of squeezing the trigger too firmly.

[Max]

If you have a CH HOTAS setup (CH Combat Stick/Fighterstick, CH Pedals, Pro Throttle), I would recommend that you map as much as you can to your joystick and throttle and only
leave the keyboard for typing in chat or for certain .dot commands like .salvo and .delay.  Ideally, you want spend less time hunting and pecking on the keyboard as much as possible.

Do you have primary, secondary, fire all weapons mapped to your throttle or joystick? If throttle, which assignments?

[Ack-Ack]

Do you have primary, secondary, fire all weapons mapped to your throttle or joystick? If throttle, which assignments?

I have primary and secondary fire mapped to my trigger and thumb button my CH Combat Stick.  I don't have fire all weapons mapped as I don't really need command.