I've been using the CH Yoke USB for some time but I am about to get a stick for the A320 and also LOMAC. Any recs out there? Noel

The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar with EvenStrain Gimbals and Hall Effects Sensors. Smooth as silk, precise, incredible resolution, and truely great programming software.Not cheap, but "great" never is. :-)

Yikes it is expensive! But it is worth a look so I will check it out . . .What might be your next choice should I not decide to part with that huge chunck of cash? It DOES look good though!Noel

Looks good...feels even better! Trust me...you'll never want to play flight sims with anything else from the moment you grip the Cougar for the first time!Noel...noticed you finally took the plunge on the SCSI/Cheetah setup...we discussed my experience about a year ago, I think. Did my recommendations live up to your expectations? Is you LSI the elite 1600? Are you using RAID-0? Any challenges?Nice to touch base with old acquantences...Gino CoughranP4 2.8 @ 3.1Ghz1G PC1066 Samsung RDRAMAsus P4T533-C with BIOS 1010LSI Elite 1600 SCSI RAID w/ 2 Cheetah X15-36LP 18GAdaptec 19160 w/ Plextor Ultraplex 40Max CDROMTB Santa CruzGF4 Ti4400 Det. 43.45 (soon to be ATI Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 256M DDR2)Win2k SP3 w/ CacheDisk HotFix and DX9CH Pro USB w/ RuddersTM Cougar HOTAS

Hi Gino,I am happy with the Cheetah 15.3s. I am not using SCSI RAID, and I purchased the 18 and 36GB versions. I am using the lowly LSI u160 controller, but hey it works great! ATTO scores are around 62mb/sec read/write. As to weather or not there is any impact on FS, it's really hard to say. I DO enjoy having things like FSFMax airport info load virtually instantaneously. FS performs fantastic on this machine for sure. I can now fly the Falcon 50 or PSS Dash 8 in ANY conditions whatsoever and maintain smooth flight at 22-25 FPS (locked at 25). The sim is ultra smooth now which is cool. It's amazing to have the graphic splendor of this Radeon 9700 Pro, come into KSAN at dusk with all the wonderful lights, all settings maxed except Terrain Mesh Complexity at 80%. I am able to run 75m or better mesh, FSFMax, Flight Deck Comm, ActiveSky, and any aircraft in my hangar and rarely experience even the slightest hiccough. I am happy with the Cheetah drives. They run at 22 degree C in my case right now after flying from Juneau to Anchorage.Hey Gino, do you know if the 3.4 and 3.6GHz P4/800s due out late 2003 will run on our machines, even if only at 533mHz? I understand these will be socket 478, but I guess they would need two multiplier options to pull that off. If they won't then it appears I may be maxed at a 3.06 CPU but at least it has HT enabled on this board.Great to here from you! I must definitely checkout the HOTAS Cougar it appears. Where can I get one at a decent cost? That is a crazy cost for a JS!Noel

Noel,Glad to hear those are working for you. As for RAID-0...it can be a little more trouble than it's worth, so you're probably not missing much. I get 105MB/s Read (using ATTO) and 75MB/s Write...which is cool...except in RAID0 if either drive fails or glitches you lose your ENTIRE install!!! Well, guess what? My X15-36LP's run hotter than your 15.3's and require active cooling...which I have since they're installed directly in front of two 80mm fans on my Lian-Li. However, I neglected to keep the filter cleaned out and overheated my drives to the point of failure!!! Of course I took advantage of Seagate's great warranty and had both drives replaced...but I'm just now getting my install back to where it was (about a month of work). I'm actually considering backing up my install (which I didn't before) and selling my RAID card and just using my 19160, just so I don't have to worry about that again!!!Not sure about the 800Mhz processors running on our rigs...I sure hope so! I bought this MB w/ HT capability so that I could just upgrade my CPU in another year.Not sure where you can get the Cougar anymore. I paid $260 at Chips & Bits when first released. As for price being too high...do you remember the Thrustmaster F16 hotas around 5-8 years ago? It was plastic and ran over $300 for the set. This Cougar is 10 times more solid, better constructed, and more functional...and costs less!!! Thrustmaster has dropped production of the line because they were taking such a loss on the setup...it actually costed more to produce than they sold for. What a bargain... Let me know if you can locate one. Check out cougar.frugalsworld.com for more info and forums. It truly feels like it was ripped right out of an F-16!Take care and keep in touch. I'm off to some meetings...Gino

Actually, the Cougar is not out of production. Word from most retailers is that they should start arriving at popular outlets sometime in May. I bought both of mine from Flightsim Central, and alot are sold through Amazon.Just to clarify, the EvenStrain Cougar is a highly modded Cougar. It has a set of precision machined gimbals and Hall Effects Sensors, as well as a completly different centering system. Again, not cheap but incredible feel and precision.

The Saitek X45 is one of the most durable ones out there, it has almost no inner moving parts so its not as easy to break, and its a pure HOTAS.

Gino if you want you can use motherboard monitor to watch the temps on your Cheetahs. This is what I have done. You need to install a small piece of software in addition to MBM called ASPI from Adaptec to allow MBM to access the SMART reporting capabilities of your Cheetahs, ie, to read their temps. It's kind of nice to see their temps. BTW, I also have a Lian Li case too so I also have active cooling and thank you for the tip on keeping the filter clean. Yikes that's amazing. Attached is a display of the temp reporting in MBM. CPU is in red, mainboard blue, the two Cheetahs are green, and the last number is the CPU usage %.Noel

>The Saitek X45 is one of the most durable ones out there, it>has almost no inner moving parts so its not as easy to break,>and its a pure HOTAS.I had heard that there were some problems with the X45 in windows XP. Does anyone know if these have been fixed? Is anyone using it on WinXP with no problems? Also, does it work with old CH gameport rudder pedals? Thanks,

I have been waiting, and found this:http://www.tecpilot.com/index.shtml?http:/...themag116.shtmlbut the link to the site is empty and there's no sign of it.Vaporware maybe? Let's hope not...Good luck, Andrew

Craig,I just got an X45 and it is indeed great. I run Win98 SE and besides the X45, I use CH Products analog rudder pedals connected through a (very) old CH Flightstick which is plugged into the gameport - everything works like a charm! I abandoned the idea of getting a yoke, this stick is really good. Precise, large travel, especially the separate throttle and more buttons you'll ever need.I have a second HD with WinXP installed; I just haven't had the time to try FS2k2 there yet. I will, soon... please, feel free to drop me an email if there's something particular you want me to try. :)Regards,JureBush Flying Unlimited]"At home in the wild"[/i