Brunner CLS-E and iFly 737 MAX 8

[webmaximus]

Today, I was planning to do my first flight in the new iFly 737 MAX 8 but as soon as I engaged CMD A, the flight turned into complete madness. Where the aircraft couldn’t care less following the selected lateral and vertical modes selected.

At first, I couldn’t understand what was causing this weird behavior but then I came to think maybe it’s my Brunner CLS-E yoke. So I tried disconnecting it and sure enough, now the aircraft started behaving as expected.

So clearly, the new iFly 737 MAX 8 and Brunner yokes (or at least my old CLS-E yoke) currently don’t like each other that much. Should also mention this is in MSFS2020.

Anyone else in here had any luck flying the new with a Brunner yoke?

[Stijn]

Same for me.

My guess is that its to do with input overwriting the autopilot and subsequently disconnecting it.

If in straight and level flight with no yoke input autopilot does work for me but move the yoke even a millimeter and it disconnects.

My guess is that the fix is on ifly’s side, if they allow for controller lockout that should hopefully resolve this issue.

They also use different variables for yoke movement in general as the autopilot doesn’t move the brunner yoke like in the 737

[webmaximus]

Thanks, good to hear it’s not just me.

After spending the entire weekend fiddling with this, I got tired of it and bought myself a Honeycomb Alpha which I will use for now until the issue has been resolved. Just to be able to use this new and amazing aircraft.

I hope we will eventually see full support in both directions between Brunner and iFly.

[webmaximus]

Interestingly enough though, one guy over in the Avsim forums has his Brunner CLS-E yoke working fine with the iFly MAX, see here. Only thing which he admits isn’t working is having autopilot enabled. Meaning no movements of the Brunner yoke when the AP is engaged.

I’ve tried to make sure I’m using the same settings but I still can’t make it work over here.

I also created a ticket with Brunner where I hope to hear back from Diego or someone else soon. Even if I can fly the iFly MAX now with the Alpha yoke I bought, it feels like a toy when you’re used to a CLS-E.

Based on how the Brunner these days works fine with pretty much every other aircraft in all simulators, I want to stay positive that will be possible with this iFly MAX as well. Would be a real shame if not considering this new iFly MAX seems to become the most popular 737 ever created for a flight sim!

[webmaximus]

Please give your vote here for having iFly devs look into the compatibility issue with Brunner hardware.

[Stijn]

Thanks for the forum link, that solution fixed it mostly for me.
with the deadzone it still disconnects but has a much greater margin in before it disconnects.

i see that it doesnt work for you but just to check since i just made this mistake myself, besides setting the deadzone number did you not forget to also enbable the center deadzone as thats a seperate checkbox just below the number?

[webmaximus]

I was also able to make the issue a bit less of an issue by using a dead zone (and yes, I did enable it ;-)) but still not acceptable. I do all my flying online and I need being able to rely on the aircraft doing what it’s supposed to do. Rather than having the AP fight my Brunner yoke.

Maybe I mentioned it above already, this issue I think is more for the iFly developers to look into. Since the Brunner yoke works without these kinds of issues with most other aircraft. Both Asobo default aircraft but also other 3rd party aircraft such as the PMDG NG.

However, to have the Brunner yoke work fully with AP integration where the Brunner yoke will mimic the virtual yoke with AP engaged, there I think possibly, some work needs to be done from both sides.

Either way, I hope this issue can be fully resolved. I really do miss my Brunner yoke but at the same time, I do want to fly this new amazing aircraft.

Diego at Brunner has worked his magic before and made things work and I’m positive he will be able to do the same thing here. Best thing would probably be for him to reach out to the iFly developers and work together with them. I will never forget how he did exactly that with Lubos I think his name is, (the developer of the Zibo mod in X-Plane) and once they were done, the yoke worked perfectly. Even loss of hydraulic pressure worked as it should. Simply amazing!!

[bluemax]

in the table of the 737 Max, in the autopilot section, put the tip on yoke and it works perfectly.

[webmaximus]

Since my last post in here, I’ve managed to make the Brunner yoke work in the sense I can have the AP in the iFly MAX8 engaged. This by using the new option in version 1.0.0 of the iFly MAX8 where you tell it to completely ignore any yoke input when the AP is engaged. I guess that is also what you’re referring to?

However, even when this will make it possible to have the Brunner yoke connected and use it for hand-flying the aircraft, it still won’t move with the AP engaged. Or at least I don’t think it will. Haven’t had a chance to do a proper flight yet so not completely sure. Also, I’m not sure if the settings you do in CLS2Sim for the AP etc will be of importance when you tick the option above in the iFly to ignore any yoke input.

Haven’t heard back from Diego for some time now. Which I hope is because he’s fully busy trying the iFly MAX8 out himself and hopefully, be able to find a way for full compatibility with Brunner yokes.

Now we of course have MSFS2024 to think of as well but personally, I haven’t had any time to play around with it yet. Good thing Christmas holidays is around the corner with some extra spare time to spend on funny things such as flight simming 🙂

[mofa]

I have CLS-E II yoke. I haven’t tried it with iFly 737 yet. However, I have encountered similar behavior with other aircrafts. I solved it either by going to Autopilot tab and unchecking (On overpower disable) or by increasing the force (which is the force needed to disconnect the AP) to 3500-4000 instead of the default 2000.

[webmaximus]

Good advice but with the iFly MAX8, the only way right now seems to be by using the inhibit yoke input feature in the EFB.

I also tried just for fun to enable the AP again in CLS2Sim even when I had the inhibit yoke input feature set in the EFB. Just to see if that would make any difference or even better yet, make the Brunner yoke move with the yoke in the aircraft but sadly, that was not the case.

So right now, it seems we are stuck with what we have – a chance to use the Brunner yoke but without any physical movements with AP engaged.

[mofa]

The same issue (no movement with autopilot) happened with PMDG 737 and was solved by Brunner by adding ( EnableDataBroadcast=1 ) under [SDK] in Options.ini.

https://cls2sim.brunner-innovation.swiss/ThirdpartyAircraft.htm

[webmaximus]

Yes, let’s hope something similar will be possible with the iFly MAX8.

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