Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog Flight Stick for Flight Simulation, Official Replica of the U.S Air Force A-10C Aircraft (Compatible with PC)

The good:• Incredible array of buttons• Excellent ergonomics• Superior build quality• Very nice stick tensionThe bad:• The base is extremely tall. Your hand sits 5 and a half inches off the ground. Combine this with the fact that this is a realistically stiff joystick, and you have a problem. This nasty combination destroys your body mechanics and forces bad posture in most of the "off the shelf" ways you would use a joystick. If you set the joystick on your desk, your hand must hover nearly 6 inches off the top of the desk. If you set the joystick on your lap, the top of your hand is going to be almost even with your chest. Just about the only way I could use the stick "off the shelf" was to put it between my legs. This felt very natural. But I also have a throttle I want to use. What to do with it? Naturally, I put it on the desk. But now that my stick is in my lap, I have to either sit a little away from the desk pushing me out of comfortable reach of the throttle, or, I have to drop my chair down so the joystick fits under the desk, now meaning that my throttle is almost shoulder high. Both postures get uncomfortable after a few minutes. This means that you will very likely need to build or buy a custom cockpit setup to hold your throttle and/or joystick. Not desiring to spend a lot of time or money on such an endeavor, I bought a Computer Armrest Extender so that I could set my throttle on the armrest of my office chair, and then use the stick between my legs, where I am sitting on the large metal plate. This gave me a very good setup that only took a few dollars and a few minutes of work.Competitive Analysis:• I find the stick movement / tension / spring far superior to what you'll find on Saitek / MadCatz sticks like the Mad Catz F.L.Y.5 or the Saitek Pro Flight X-55 Rhino.• This is a righty-only stick, unlike Thrustmaster's T-16000M or the Logitech Attack 3.• This has more buttons on the stick than just about any other joystick out there. It has nearly 30 buttons!• The ergonomics of this stick are better than Thrustmaster's cheaper T-Flight Hotas X. The Warthog fits in your hand much better.

The Warthog gets a lot of negative reviews because it has a plastic gimbal, and fair enough. But of all other options including Virpil, VKB and Winwing, the Warthog is the cheapest, most available and easy-to-acquire joystick to get in the upper tier.In full disclosure, my base has in fact developed the slightest twist action, but* this is only because I purchased a couple different 10 cm extensions, the first being poor quality and requiring me to screw and unscrew it multiple times, putting unnecessary pressure on the gimble. This can be remedied by making sure you get a high quality extension and cord, if you wish to use one. Because of that, I purchased an additional base just in case my current one breaks. All of that said, I'm still using my original base with the very slight twist action, and it has not affected my flying whatsoever. I will continue to use this base and leave my new one under my desk until the original breaks.And finally, the grip. I LOVE the grip. Did I mention I love it? I do. This is the main selling point for me. No other grip whether Virpil, VKB or Winwing feels as real as the Warthog. The former are in fact quite plasticky and cheap feeling, though still high quality. That weight adds an unexpected measure of immersion that I just can't give up for any of the others. Because of this, I have accepted the fact that I may just need a new base every now and then, and for $169, even if it's once a year I can swing that, though it has been known to last much longer. The other option is Virpil, but they're quite expensive even just for their bases, and they're always back-ordered.

really good product, high quality components. some claim that hall effect sensors should have been used instead of regular pots.. but it's been working just fine.

Definitely the top of the line for the thrustmaster product line up, and I am very satisfied with this stick. Being big into flight sims (IL2, DCS, etc.) I cant help but to not pick certain things that should be brought up.The stick itself it solid, all the seams nice and flush, paint is super tough and applied very professionally. All the switches/buttons/hats are very tactile, not the least bit cheap feeling.The base itself leaves some to be desired. Even with this being a rather hefty stick, it "suction cups" back to center. Going from side to side/up and down you pass through that center zone almost as if going through a small pothole in the road. Not the biggest of deals, but for an upper tier stick like this I believe it needs to be mentioned.The movements are rather smooth overall, but when trying to do slow precise movements, you'll notice it tends to skip place to place slightly, like if you were to drag your hand across a table with pressure on it, instead of it being a smooth glide, you can feel the slightest binding/jumping. Again, not the biggest of issues, and it may have broke in over time, but for this reason I went with a 75mm extension from Virpil to give me a bit more precision.Lastly people complain about this having a plastic gimble, but having worked in injection molding, I'll tell you just because something is plastic does not make something cheap or inferior. It is well made and very clean lines(no gasping, flash, coldslugs, etc.), but just not up to par with products like Virpils WarBRD base. But then again products from Virpil and VKB are almost in a tier all their own.