Pitch and yaw and their topsy turvy controls

[THX1138]

I know I can change the controls to suit me but is there a good reason (presumably based in science) why the pitch and yaw respond in opposite ways to intuition?

I look at the navball and need to move my nose left on the ball so I press the left key (A). That's straightforward. I need to move my nose forward on the ball so I press the upper key (W). No, crap, damn it, (S), turn, damn it turn, ***, Esc, revert launch, ****

Sometimes, because I'm used to pressing the opposite of what I want for pitch, I press the opposite of what I want for yaw. They're both competing in my head.

There are other games which have the same unintuitive controls for piloting aircraft. Why?!

[Pecan]

Because 'W' would be like pushing a joystick forward (= pitch down) and 'A' would be pulling it back (= pitch up)

[SlimeCrusher]

Because that's how it actually works in real life, push foward on the joystick and go down, push backwards and you'll go up.

You'll get it if you play long enough

Edited June 30, 2014 by SlimeCrusher

[FenrirWolf]

The answer is that any game aiming to model real flight stick behavior will function this way.

[LethalDose]

If I'm flying with the camera in orbital or auto, I tend to get my controls confused, but I've found that the chase cam helps a lot.

[THX1138]

I've switched the controls around. While in an air plane forward/back for down and up make perfect sense given the orientation of the pilot, it makes a lot less sense in a rocket where you're rotating all over the place. I could be wrong but I'd guess that actual rocket vehicles aren't steered with a yoke so that's another reason, if correct, why this doesn't make sense.

[Red Iron Crown]

Controls for actual spacecraft are designed for pilots used to the convention for controls, so they work the same way as the stock controls in KSP.

If you like your config better by all means enjoy it, but it's backwards compared to every flight sim ever.