FLIGHT CONTROLS - STEERING TILLER

The steering tiller is an often overlooked piece of hardware.  The steering tiller provides greater control of the aircraft during taxi operations, and if correctly calibrated correctly works very well.

OEM is an acronym for Original Equipment Manufacturer.

oem Boeing 737-400 steering tiller. The tiller has been fitted to an aluminium plate for installation to trim

OEM Steering Tiller

The tiller has been salvaged from a B737-400 series aircraft and is identical to the tiller used in the Next Generation airframe.  The OEM component is only the black handle with the white arrow.  The remainder of the unit has been custom fabricated to allow easy attachment to the inside wall liners of the flight deck.

Realistic Push Pull Pressure

To replicate the pressure felt when the steering tiller is moved (as in the real aircraft), a number of  heavy duty springs have been installed behind the mounting plate.  The way the springs have been installed is very similar to the process used with the yoke, elevator and rudder pedals.  Although rudimentary in design, this method of creating push/pull pressure works very well, and is an excellent stop gap until control force steering is used in the simulator. 

rear of aluminium mounting plate showing springs and linear potentiometer

Potentiometer and Calibration

A linear potentiometer has been used to enable the steering tiller to be recognised in Windows (to enable an axis to be assigned), and to be calibrated by Direct Calibration either in ProSim737 or FSUIPC.

The calibration finesse for the steering tiller is not as important as the other flight controls. Therefore, to save a few dollars a linear potentiometers was used rather than an expensive Uninmeasure potentiometer.

The potentiometer is connected to a Leo Bodnar BU086A Joystick Controller card.  

  • Updated 27 June 2020.