Microsoft Flight Simulator guide: How to invert look on a controller

Playing Microsoft Flight Simulator with a controller rather than a joystick is a bit of a mixed experience. You’ll still need your keyboard because mapping all those buttons to a controller just doesn’t work.

The weirdest quirk about using a controller, though, is that there’s no easy setting to invert the look controls on the right thumbstick. In this guide, we’ll tell you where to find the settings, and tell you how to get them inverted.

How to invert look controls

On a controller, the right thumbstick controls your camera (you know, like in every game). In the cockpit, you’ll use it to look around the cabin and your instrument panel. While controlling the Drone Camera, it’s how you’ll change direction while flying around.

But the defaults for the camera controls on the right thumbstick are not inverted like the aircraft controls are (and the way any reasonable person uses a thumbstick).

Image: Asobo Studio/Microsoft Corporation via Polygon

To fix this, go to Options > Controls > Controller > Camera.

Click on Cockpit Camera to reveal the list of controls. You’re looking for Cockpit Look Down and Up. Click on the button icon next to one of them to pull up a window to assign a new one.

Image: Asobo Studio/Microsoft Corporation via Polygon

Click on Select an input, and scroll to the bottom. Pick the direction you want (the opposite of what was assigned), and then click Validate. You’ll get a series of warnings about how the key is assigned elsewhere, but that’s OK. Click Validate again.

You’ll get a prompt to save a new controller profile and store these settings. Name it whatever you want.

Repeat this process for the other direction of Cockpit Look.

Scroll down on the list of camera controls until you come to Drone Camera. Repeat the process for Pitch Drone Down and Up.