Flight Notes By Flightengr

RealFlight 9.5 Setup with the InterLink DX Controller

This issue of Flight Notes explains how the Spektrum InterLink DX controller works with
RealFlight.

Overview
This document is arranged into four sections.

Section 1 – Connecting InterLink DX to Windows

Section 2 – Controller Configuration in RealFlight
Section 3 – Adjusting Dual Rate and Expo (the Software Radio)
Section 4 – Generic Function as a Windows Game Controller

Section 1 –Connecting InterLink DX to Windows

The InterLink DX controller plugs into a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port on your Windows computer. There
is no need for any drivers, and in fact, it works even if RealFlight is not installed. Windows treats
it as a game controller device. Technically, you could use the InterLink DX with other flight
simulators that use a Windows game controller. More details about that are in Section 4.

It should be that easy to get it going – just plug it in.

Troubleshooting
If you have trouble getting the InterLink DX to work with Windows, then there may be an issue
with the USB connection. For example, Windows may complain about the “device is
unrecognized” or say that it has some sort of driver issue. As I mentioned, you don’t need a
driver to make it work. Instead, you may be encountering a known issue between the InterLink
DX and some newer computers with faster USB ports. You may be able to tell if you have such a
computer by the presence of one or more USB-C ports on the computer.

To troubleshoot this situation, first check and see if Windows recognizes the device. You can do
this by running a program in Windows called "joy.cpl". If you have the Windows search box
showing at the bottom of your screen, type in joy.cpl there and run the program. Otherwise,
you can click on the Start button and start typing joy.cpl. If the controller is working, you'll see
Interlink DX listed in that screen as shown below.

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If you don’t see it listed here with a status of “OK”, then there are a couple of things you can
try. If you’re plugged into a USB port on the front of your computer, try plugging it into a port
on the back of the computer. Also try a port that’s a different color inside if you have more than
one choice.

If you can’t make it work with any of your USB ports, then the solution is going to be to use a
USB hub. That's a device that converts one USB port on your computer into three or four more
ports. Of course, you don't really need extra ports, but what it's doing in this case is putting
something between the Interlink DX and your computer that will get rid of this strange
connection problem.

It doesn't need to be a fast hub - older USB 2.0 hubs work fine in this case. You will also find
that there's such a thing as a "powered hub". That's a hub that has a power plug so that the hub
can provide more power to devices that need it. You shouldn't need that either unless you have
a lot of other USB devices plugged in besides the keyboard, mouse, and things that have their
own power supply such as a printer.

Plug the USB hub into your computer, and then plug the InterLink DX into the USB hub. That
should solve the problem.

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Section 2 – Controller Configuration in RealFlight
To make a controller operate correctly, typically you need to associate your controller’s
channels with the correct RealFlight radio channels. Fortunately, this has all been done for you
since the InterLink DX has been designed especially for RealFlight. RealFlight will automatically
apply a standard Controller Profile when it detects the InterLink DX.

Calibrating the Controller

You should calibrate the controller before you start using it for the first time. You can calibrate
the controller at any time by going to the Controller Profile within RealFlight. Go to the
Simulation menu, and then choose the “Select controller…” option.

When you choose “Select controller…”, the following window appears. RealFlight will recognize
the InterLink DX transmitter by name. You’ll also see which Profile is being used, and you can
edit the profile (“Edit” button) or calibrate the controls (“Calibrate”) to make sure that
RealFlight is detecting the full range of your sticks.

To calibrate the controller, click “Calibrate” on the “Select Controller” window.

The program will ask you to center all variable controls, which includes both sticks, the knob,
and the sliders on the back.

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Click “Next”, and the Controller Calibration screen appears. On this screen, you will move all of
the listed controls all the way from one end to the other. As you move a control, you’ll see the
blue bar move for that channel. When you have moved all of the bars and seen the bars move
all the way from 0% to 100%, click “Finish”.

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Standard Control Profile
The controls on the InterLink DX are mapped to RealFlight software radio channels as shown in
the table below.

RealFlight Channel InterLink DX Control Airplane Function

Channel 1 – Aileron Right Stick X Axis Aileron
Channel 2 – Elevator Right Stick Y Axis Elevator
Channel 3 – Throttle Left Stick Y Axis Throttle
Channel 4 – Rudder Left Stick X Axis Rudder
Channel 5 – Ele/Dual Rate Switch C Dual Rate for Elevator or for All**
Channel 6 – Flaps Switch D Flaps
Channel 7 – Smoke Switch A Landing Gear/Retracts
Channel 8 – Mode Switch B Flight Modes (AS3X/SAFE)
Channel 9 – Throttle Hold Switch H Throttle Hold
Channel 10 – Ail. Rate Switch F Dual Rate for Aileron
Channel 11 – Rudd. Rate Switch G Dual Rate for Rudder
Channel 12 Button I SAFE Panic Mode
Channel 13 Knob may be used by certain aircraft
Channel 14 Left Slider may be used by certain aircraft
Channel 15 Right Slider may be used by certain aircraft

** Channel 5 may be set up for only Elevator Dual Rate, or for Dual Rate for all three channels
depending on how the aircraft is designed.

Notice that there is no direct control for Pitch on a collective-pitch helicopter. The software
radio handles the definition of a pitch curve based on the throttle stick.

In addition to the controls related to flying aircraft, the InterLink DX has three other features:
• The RESET button will reset the simulator, returning you to a state where your aircraft is
ready for takeoff (handy after a not-so-graceful landing).
• The SELECT roller wheel brings up a shortcut menu on the left side of the screen and
allows you to select options from it.
• The CANCEL button allows you to back up or cancel a selection made with the roller
wheel.

Editing the Profile

If you’d like to rearrange the functions on the various controls, you may edit the Controller
Profile.

From the Select Controller screen (Simulation menu, “Select Controller…”), you can choose the
active Profile. At first, you’ll only have one for the InterLink DX, so just click the Edit button.

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This brings up a screen like the table on the previous page, showing all of the RealFlight
channels and the inputs they’re associated with.

To make a change, click on the blue box in the “Input” column for the channel or function you’d
like to change. A screen pops up that asks you to move the control on your controller that you’d
like to assign. The program will figure out which control to assign just by moving it like that!

When you’re done making changes, note that you cannot save over one of the default profiles;
the “Save” button is grayed out. So instead, click “Save As…” and give your custom profile a
new name.

Click “Close” to close the editing screen, and then ensure your custom setup is selected as the
active profile.

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Section 3 – Adjusting Dual Rate and Expo (the Software Radio)
The InterLink DX does not have customizable settings like a typical RC transmitter. To get
around that, RealFlight implemented what they call the “Software Radio”. The Software Radio
will process your stick input and modify it before applying it to the aircraft. The most common
thing you would change in this manner is settings for Dual Rate (Low Rate) and Expo, although
the Software Radio can do more than that.

Settings for the Software Radio are not set universally, but instead are set on the individual
aircraft. This makes sense since you will probably want different settings for each aircraft.

This diagram illustrates the levels of processing within RealFlight. Every airplane has a Receiver
as you’d expect. The Software Radio is a level of configuration between the

At a minimum, the Software Radio will connect the input channels (the channels from your
controller) to channels on the Receiver, as controls on the aircraft are connected to Receiver
channels. The Software Radio can add Low Rate, Expo, and also some mixes or computed
modifications to an Output Channel based on certain conditions on Input Channels.

While most aircraft already have settings configured for Low Rate and Expo, your Controller
Profile (described in the previous Section) will determine whether RealFlight will apply those
settings. In the Controller Profile, you may have noticed two check boxes in the lower left
corner of the screen full of controller settings.

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For the InterLink DX, both of those boxes are checked, which means the Software Radio will
apply settings for mixes and for Rate/Expo. If you are using a real RC transmitter, you may not
want the Software Radio to do that, but instead leave those things up to your transmitter. For
other transmitters, it’s common to turn off the Rate/Expo box or both boxes.

To change the settings for the Software Radio, you’ll need to edit the Aircraft itself.

Edit the Aircraft

While the simulator is running, you can go to the Aircraft menu and choose “Edit (your current
aircraft name…)”

You’ll see the Aircraft Editor, a screen with a wireframe drawing of the airplane. All of the
settings are managed on the tabs in the lower section of the screen.

The tab we’re interested in is the Radio tab.

When you click on the Radio tab, you’ll see settings for a bunch of Output Channels. Each
Output Chanel of the Software Radio is configured separately.

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It’s important to note that the Output Channel numbers are similar to port numbers on a real
receiver. These numbers are not necessarily related to the Input Channel numbers. The
function of each Output Channel will depend on which Input Channel is assigned to it! Do not
assume that Output Channel x is the same as Input Channel x.

Channel Basics, Including Low Rate and Expo

When you drill into a particular channel, you’ll typically see something like this:

This channel has settings for Low Rate, Expo, and has one Input Channel defined.

To find out what this Output Channel really does, you’ll need to look at the settings for “Input”.
Click on the word “Input”, and you’ll see the settings appear on the right.

This channel is getting its main input from Input Channel 4 (Left Stick X Axis on the InterLink
DX), which is the rudder.

This is where you could change the Percent of the stick input that going to be applied to the
Output when Low Rates are not active. Think of this number as the “High Rate” number. You

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can also reverse the channel here if necessary, but that is usually handled by the person who
designed this particular aircraft.

You’ll also see a sub-heading for “Input Feed When”. It’s possible to set up inputs that are
conditional on something else, but that’s only used for advanced mixing setups. Normally the
setting for “Activated When” is “Always”.

If you click on the name of the Output Channel (“Output Channel 4” in this case), you can see
the main settings for the channel.

By changing the settings on the right, you can set some trim, the % value for Low Rates (when
active) and the % value for Expo (when active).

To find out when Low Rates are active, click on “Low Rates When”.

In this example, the Low Rates will be active when “Conditional Channel below value #1”. The
Conditional Channel is Input Channel 5 (Switch C on the InterLink DX), which is the channel for
Dual Rate. (This particular aircraft has the Dual Rate for all channels on the same switch.)

The “Read-Only Parameters” show you what the current value is from the transmitter; if you
flip the switch on the transmitter, you’ll see the Read-Only Parameters change, and you could
get “Condition Satisfied” to say “Yes”.

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The settings for “Exponential When” are very similar.

Notice that you can change the setting for “Activated When”. This aircraft is set to have Expo
active all the time, and then those other settings for the Output Channel set the amount of
Expo based on whether High Rates or Low Rates are active. You could also assign the Expo to a
switch like Low Rates, or you could change it to “Never” to turn Expo off.

Make changes as you like to each channel. Usually – BUT NOT ALWAYS – Output Channel 1 is
Ailerons, 2 is Elevator, and 4 is Rudder. Double check the Input setting for the channel to make
sure it’s what you think it is.

Advanced Mixing
You can skip this part and go on to “Saving Your Changes” if that’s all you want to change. If
you’re interested in how the Software Radio would mix two channels, continue below.

Right away, you’ll see something different about this channel. It has two inputs!

How did it get two inputs? If you point at the Output Channel name (such as “Output Channel
1”) and right-click, you see an “Add” feature on the pop-up menu.

The first input looks fairly normal.

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It’s using 100% of Input Channel 1 (aileron, or Right Stick X-Axis on InterLink DX) all the time.
Note that “Logic” says “Add to other feeds”. If there are other feeds, which there is in this case,
the amount of input on this Input Channel is added to the value from other inputs.

Let’s look at the other input.

This input is using 15% of Input Channel 4 (rudder, or Left Stick X Axis on InterLink DX), and
adding it to the other input.

Step back and notice what was done here. The net result of this is a 15% RUD>AIL mix! So to
create a mix like this, you add the mix input channel as second Input Channel for the Output
Channel that corresponds to the output channel of the mix. Or put another way, we came to
the aileron Output Channel and added the Input Channel for rudder as a second input but with
a smaller percentage (just 15%). Or put another way, the aileron output is looking at both the
aileron stick as well as a percentage of the rudder stick.

In this example, “Input Feed When” is set to “Always” for both inputs, but you could put this
mix on a switch by changing “Input Feed When” for Input Channel 4 on Conditional Input.

Saving Your Changes

You can save changes using the File menu in the Aircraft Editor window, or you’l be prompted
to save when you go to close the Aircraft Editor window and there are changes. You cannot
save over a model that came with RF, so if you’re editing one of the stock models then you’ll be
prompted for a name. (On the File menu, “Save” will be grayed out and you’ll have to choose
“Save As”.) Your new plane will be listed in the “Custom Aircraft” section of the Select Aircraft
screen.

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Section 4 – Generic Function as a Windows Game Controller
Windows recognizes the InterLink DX as a generic game controller device. You can use the
InterLink DX with other simulator software if you’d like to. If you do that, the information below
will be helpful.

Control Mapping in Windows

InterLink DX presents the controls to Windows as shown in the following table.

InterLink DX Control Windows Game Control Channel

Left Stick Vertical Y-Axis
Left Stick Horizontal X-Axis
Right Stick Vertical Y-Rotation
Right Stick Horizontal X-Rotation
Left Slider Z-Axis
Right Slider Z-Rotation
Switch A Button 1
Switch B Position 0 = Button 2 On, Button 3 Off
Position 1 = Button 2 Off, Button 3 Off
Position 2 = Button 2 Off, Button 3 On
Switch C Position 0 = Button 4 On, Button 5 Off
Position 1 = Button 4 Off, Button 5 Off
Position 2 = Button 4 Off, Button 5 On
Switch D Position 0 = Button 6 On, Button 7 Off
Position 1 = Button 6 Off, Button 7 Off
Position 2 = Button 6 Off, Button 7 On
Knob E Dial
Switch F Position 0 = Button 9 On, Button 8 Off
Position 1 = Button 9 Off, Button 8 Off
Position 2 = Button 9 Off, Button 8 On
Switch G Position 0 = Button 11 On, Button 10 Off
Position 1 = Button 11 Off, Button 10 Off
Position 2 = Button 11 Off, Button 10 On
Switch H Button 12
Button I Button 13
Reset Button Button 14
Cancel Button Button 15
Roller Wheel Press – Button 16
Scroll Left – Button 17
Scroll Right – Button 18
Left Stick Vertical Trim Up – Button 22
Down – Button 21

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 InterLink DX Control Windows Game Control Channel
Left Stick Horizontal Trim Left – Button 19
Right – Button 20
Right Stick Vertical Trim Up – Button 26
Down – Button 25
Right Stick Horizontal Trim Left – Button 23
Right – Button 24

Revision 1 – March 2022

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