MSFS 2024 introduced aircraft-specific presets, but binding remains limited to commands defined globally by the simulator.
This means many aircraft-unique systems implemented in WASM or JavaScript using LVARs or HVARs, such as special flight systems, interaction wheels, or aircraft-specific procedures, cannot be bound to joystick buttons or keyboard keys.
This is particularly limiting for accessibility and voice control tools such as VoiceAttack, which require a keybinding in order to trigger actions.
PROPOSAL (LIGHTWEIGHT AND OPT-IN)
Introduce a fixed pool of generic bindable actions, for example:
- Custom Control 01 through Custom Control 99
This proposal is intentionally limited to providing a bindable indirection layer, not duplicating the functionality of external tools.
These custom controls would:
- be exposed by MSFS as normal bindable controls for both keyboard and controller input
- be optionally registered by the active aircraft with a display name
- optionally include a category or tooltip
- invoke aircraft-side logic through a callback or event when activated
- remain hidden when unused by the aircraft
This avoids forcing aircraft logic into the base simulator while giving developers a supported way to expose aircraft-specific actions for:
- hardware bindings
- keyboard shortcuts
- voice control
EXAMPLE
An aircraft could register actions such as:
- Drag Chute Deploy
- Drag Chute Jettison
In addition to permitting binding these actions to buttons and switches, they could also be bound to unused keyboard chords such as LCtrl+RAlt+key and used naturally with VoiceAttack, rather than relying on unrelated keybindings.
This feels like a good middle ground between MSFS’s global control model and DCS’s per-aircraft bindings.
I would be interested to hear whether something like this fits within the current SDK architecture.