RC plane style controls with all the weapons on the bumpers and triggers

Trim on Trim, flaps on VTOL, air brakes on Brake (extra activate input can be used)
For cars, depends on whether i'm on phone (Yaw steering) or PC (Roll steering).
You can build for any control scheme by not polling the input variables directly. Instead, have intermediate variables to handle user input. It's good for cars

@Solent the Gator stock craft has collective on Throttle, so surely it's intended

helicopters should have collective set to Throttle and not VTOL, that's my hot take
but otherwise i just use a joystick
and if i don't have one, mouse controls
and if that somehow doesn't work, it's arrow keys to fly, W/S for VTOL, Tab and | for trim, Space/Ctrl for throttle, Shift to brake.

I personally like using g as thottle, and IJKL as an alternative for WASD

I've only worked on one project in the last three years (the SWL-120), and I use the following main control system (ignoring the hundreds to thousands of additional controls in the cockpit):

- Throttle: Throttle (overrides individual throttle levers when moved)
- VTOL: Flaps (overrides flaps lever when moved, and both VTOL and the flaps lever have code to step them from setting 0 to 4)
- Trim: Trim (overrides trim lever in the cockpit when moved
- Pitch: Pitch (due to autopilot integration stuff is separate, but outside the cockpit Pitch is Pitch
- Roll: Same as Pitch.
- Brake: Just wheel brakes, nothing else. Due to the lack of brake inputs on wheels it always works.
- FireGuns: Reverse thrust (requires throttle to be idle; moving throttle forward cuts out reverse thrust; levers in cockpit can be moved to any % instead of a bool)
- LaunchCountermeasures: Spoilers (lever in cockpit can be moved to any % instead of a bool)
- Yaw: I have a split tiller and rudder system, but outside the cockpit it defaults to Yaw for everything and Yaw in the cockpit will be the rudder, both, or tiller depending on the tiller mode

I guess my system can be described as using the default inputs to the best of my ability, separating systems like reverse thrust and spoilers where possible. In the cockpit everything is like a real airliner and can be moved as such though.

Car/Truck/Anything wheel-driven:

• Roll: left/right. Yes, I want to do the steering with my right hand
• Throttle Engine input. As throttle only goes from 0 to +1, this only lets the car move forward
  Therefore:
• Trim: Reverse: Trim in highest position flips the input for Throttle so that the car can move backwards. Power/speed is still controlled via Throttle, only now it is in reverse

Helicopter :
Okay, this is going to be controversial

• pitch, roll, yaw: cyclic pitch, cyclic roll, tail rotor
• Throttle:* collective Pitch

Yes, I love to make thr helicopter go up and down with my left joystick, as for the engine: I first and foremost use the governor option to have the engine run at optimal speed for the pitch settings. To start and run the engine itself, I have 3 methods, ranked by preference, lowest to highest:
- Assign engine input to VTOL slider or Trim
- Start/stop engine with activate button (Activate1 is my standard choice) and a button or switch on the dashboard in pilot view/VR mode
- just assign engine input to Throttle but set the governor real low (5-10%) so that the first 5 % is for starting the engine, for settings higher than that Throttle controls the pitch and the governor takes over the engine speed

@MonsNotTheMonster I experimented with RainMCDeer layout. Although I get used to it fairly quickly I prefer tht flaps on the right side: if I have to take a hand of its joystick to work with the flaps, I rather drop the Throttle setting and have my other hand on the pitch and roll than vice versa.

I have seen Activate1 for engines, and I believe it makes sense but I've seen a lot more builds where Activate1 is used for the cockpit doors or canopy.

VTOL plane:
- Throttle, pitch, roll, yaw: standard joystick
- VTOL slider down: flaps
- VTOL slider up: VTOL mode: in building menu and on initial spawning, I have the VTOL nozzles pointing back to function as standard jet exhausts. VTOL up rotators them downwards to full vertical and also moves all other flaps/gears/covers into VTOL position.
- Brake: wheel brakes and air brakes

Almost from the beginning I set my VTOL nozzles to rotate a bit past 90°, 120° being my current favorite. This makes that with the VTOL slider at full too, the nozzle points slightly forward to enable braking or even flying backwards.

To start off: my personal favorites:
Airplane:
- Throttle, pitch, roll, yaw: standard joystick
- VTOL slider down: flaps
- VTOL slider up: air brakes 0 to 100%
- Brake: air brakes 100%
- Trim all up or all down: special actions
- Braking parachute: I prefer a double approach: either one of the buttons or Trim to 'prime' the parachute, when 'primed', the parachute will deploy when the craft is something like 3m /10ft above the ground.

I just use what ReinMCDeer uses: VTOL for trim, Trim for flaps. It's much easier for me. Also nwa uses it too.

For the activation buttons; Activate1 is always gonna be engines and nav lights for aircrafts or ground vehicles