Hardware Flaps Lever Configuration

The FMS Speed feature on the E-Jets Family automatically sets the managed speed for each flap deployment level. For instance, setting flaps to level 2 sets the speed to 160 knots during the approach.

This might not always work as intended with your hardware flap lever, as your flap lever's detents might not align with those in the cockpit, and you might have a different number of detents.

We created this guide to help you set up your hardware flaps for an easy and intuitive experience.

We have a separate guide where we share all custom commands and datarefs that you can use for your hardware and you can find it here.

Step-By-Step Guide

Step 1

With your quadrant connected and calibrated, and X-Plane running with one of the E-Jets, go to the settings window and open the Joystick page.

Step 2

In the right-hand column go to the axis associated with your flap lever, usually called “Flaps”. Moving the lever will usually take you there. Click on “Edit Response Curve”.

Step 3

You will see a graph of the current response curve for your lever. It maps the position of your lever on the horizontal axis with the flap request ratio on the vertical axis, the X-Plane flap deployment level set by the lever.

Step 4

There may be several dots along the curve. These can be used to reposition the curve by clicking on one and holding the mouse button down while moving it around on the graph.

Step 5

At the lower left is a table of the dot positions.

  • The first line of the table selects the shape of the interpolation between the dots. We recommend using the pull-down to select Linear.

  • The left column is the position of your hardware lever along its axis and the next column is the flap ratio request sent to X-Plane for that position.

  • The last two columns of the table allow you to add or remove dots, + to add one after the current dot and x to remove the current one.

Step 6

We will set a dot in the table for every detent of our lever. The table for the E-Jets handle is effectively a straight line from 0.00 to 1.00. Flap 1 detent is at 0.1666667, flap 2 detent at 0.3333333, and so on to flap full at 1.0, Simply, the flap level is 6 times the fractional handle position.

We need to set our response curve table as close to that as possible, given that we are first limited by the number of detents we have and by the two-decimal rounding for entries to the table.

Step 7

To find the axis positions of each of your detents, move the lever from 0 to 1 stopping on each detent. You will see a small dot move along the response curve and the current position values are shown. The left number is your lever detent position, Jot it down for each detent.

Step 8

There will be a little play in the detent but try to get a center reading for it. The detents may not be evenly spaced as are the E-Jet detents. For example, our quadrant has detents: 0.00,0.25,0.49,0.73 and 1.00.

Step 9

Make one dot line in the table for each detent on your lever by clicking on + to add one or x to remove one if there are too many already.

Step 10

Enter the detent position values in the first column and the corresponding flap levels in the second column. You can edit the values by double-clicking on them. Fractions you type will be rounded to two decimal places

Step 11

If you have fewer than 7 detents you will not be able to set all the Ejet levels with one response curve and you must decide which ones to give up.

The last detent, 1.00, should go to the flap level you usually use for landing and the first two levels are usually needed for takeoffs. The others could be evenly spaced. We usually land with flaps 5 so our table is:

Step 12: Our recommended values for five detents are:

  • Flap 0: 0.00 ➞ 0.00

  • Flap 1: 0.25 ➞ 0.17

  • Flap 2: 0.49 ➞ 0.33

  • Flap 3: 0.73 ➞ 0.50

  • Flap 5: 1.00 ➞ 0.83

 

Step 13

Apply the Settings: Click on the Apply button at the lower right of the graph to save your settings.