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Slaw Device is back: RH Rotor Pedals rule the skies—for $475

 3 years ago
source link: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/04/slaw-device-is-back-rh-rotor-pedals-rule-the-skies-for-475/
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Oziabło sent over this diagram showing which of the pedal components are aluminum and which are steel.

Enlarge / Oziabło sent over this diagram showing which of the pedal components are aluminum and which are steel.
Slaw Device

A tale of two pedals

This isn’t my first piece of Slaw Device hardware. I originally fell in love with Oziabło’s work in early 2015 when I ordered a set of Slaw Device BF-109s. These pedals proved to be an excellent addition to my simpit, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with the stirrup-style foot arrangement, so in mid-2016, I upgraded to a new set of Slaw Device RX Vipers. In the almost six years since, those RX Vipers have been the perfect interface device—they remain as precise today as they were the day I bought them, and other than having to replace the main tension spring a few times and occasionally torque down a couple of screws, the pedals have been maintenance-free.

That’s why I haven’t actually purchased the set of Slaw Device RH Rotors I’m reviewing—I’m still completely satisfied with my RX Vipers. However, as amazing as they are, the RX Vipers are still very much designed for use while simming in fixed-wing aircraft (or spaceships—they work really well for spaceships, too!).

As any real pilot can tell you—and I am nowhere close to being a real pilot, though I do have a bit of F/A-18 time in my logbook—helicopters have different controls than fixed-wing aircraft. Instead of a stick and a throttle, you have a collective and a cyclic (and also a throttle). And instead of rudder pedals that swing your rudder back and forth, you have anti-torque pedals that change the pitch of your tail rotor’s blades. The effect on the aircraft is largely the same—the pedals control your yaw—but the mechanism and the feel of the controls are very different. The RH Rotors sitting on a table. Note again that cool-looking helicopter cutout on the pedal arms.
Enlarge / The RH Rotors sitting on a table. Note again that cool-looking helicopter cutout on the pedal arms.
Lee Hutchinson

The RH Rotors and why they are the way they are

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There are some differences in how fixed-wing and rotorcraft pedals feel, too. Unlike fixed-wing pedals, helicopter pedals typically don’t have any tensioning to cause them to re-center when you stop applying pressure to one side or the other. They also typically don’t have a strong center detent (that is, the "bump" you feel when the pedals pass through their center position). This is because rotary wing flight requires you to constantly make fine adjustments to all axes of rotation, including yaw, and sometimes you need to hold off-center positions with the controls to fly how you want.

There’s another difference that may or may not feel significant to you: Fixed-wing aircraft pedals typically engage along a single plane, sliding backward and forward without traveling up or down. (They pivot around the Z axis and move forward and backward in a horizontal line along +X and -X.) Rotorcraft pedals, on the other hand, tend to be hinged at the bottom and engage by rotating forward and down (they pivot around their Y axis and move in an arc in both +X/-X and also +Z/-Z). This is one of the biggest differences between the RH Rotors and previous Slaw Device pedals like the RX Vipers.

The RH Rotor pedals compared to the previous-gen RX Vipers. The Rotors are considerably narrower and also potentially taller, depending on how you attach the pedal support arms.
Enlarge / The RH Rotor pedals compared to the previous-gen RX Vipers. The Rotors are considerably narrower and also potentially taller, depending on how you attach the pedal support arms.
Lee Hutchinson

And if you want to go full rotorcraft and set the RH Rotors up to mirror helicopter-style controls, you absolutely can. Pop the dust cover off, remove the centering spring, dial up your hydraulic damper (sold separately) so that the considerable weight of the actual left and right pedals is suitably counterbalanced, and you wind up with pedals you can set in any position with light toe pressure and which will stay in the exact position where your toes put them.

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The RH Rotors support the attachment of a small hydraulic damper. One of the attachment points is at the bottom of the

Enlarge / The RH Rotors support the attachment of a small hydraulic damper. One of the attachment points is at the bottom of the "RH" nameplate.
Lee Hutchinson

However, designer Oziabło explained to Ars that while the RH Rotors can be made to feel and operate like rotorcraft pedals, they’re designed to work comfortably in any role, from helicopters to jets to spacecraft. "There was no task to create pedals that will copy real pedals," he wrote to Ars. "Therefore, it makes no sense to compare these pedals with real ones."

When I asked Oziabło about the design process behind the RH Rotors, he said, "At the very beginning, I wanted to create pedals for helicopters, like the McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apache rudder pedals. But only two letters remained from this idea in the name of the RH—Rudder, Helicopter. And later I abandoned this idea—or, more precisely, such a restriction. The pedals were created as a universal convenient device."

The RH Rotors with a hydraulic damper installed. This is a must if you're going to unhook the main spring and try for the
Enlarge / The RH Rotors with a hydraulic damper installed. This is a must if you're going to unhook the main spring and try for the "real" helicopter pedal experience.
Lee Hutchinson

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