You can't beat the Warthog HOTAS. Get rudder pedals later if you must but personally I just use one of the hat switches programmed to provide incremental rudder then push it to centre...works great. The best bit is the reversers...just pull the throttle(s) back through the gate and with appropraite programming in fsuips...voila, perfection.I have flaps on the slider so just move it incrementally to raise lower. Gear on the 3 pos flaps switch. Plus everything else programmed so I never have to touch the keyboard. The HOTAS joystick buttons all control ezdok camera views, mode controls the HGS, pinky button = nosewheel steering, 2 stage trigger is brakes & parking brake.Trim is on the joystick trim hat - it is all so logical and smooth operation. None of this flimsy joystick and yoke rubbish....Get one.Andrew Vincent

Yes, I did order one, it's en route. I purchased the combat rudder pedals so we'll see. I would like to have foot-operated rudder of some type, the combat pedals being adjustable angle seemed a good possible solution. If money were no object I'd buy the Precision Flight Controls jet rudder pedals.

Well, I was thinking about buying the Precision Flight Controls setup and it was severely expensive. I even drove to their HQ to test-out their stuff but sadly couldn't get waited on and returned home without a test-flight. Bit of a sour taste in my mouth but that's just my personal opinion. The HOTAS WH seems reasonable considering it has the Hall Effect 3D Magnetic Sensors inside. PFC told me they don't offer HE sensors in their control surface products (only in their consoles) because of what PFC claimed was "prohibitive expense of the HE sensors".So I'm very hopeful. I looked at a Mimo2 7" touch-screen monitor and am thinking of that for an inexpensive FMC on my desktop, I was considering re-buying the iPad2 to use as an external FMC device. I am going to wait until I unbox the Warthog before messing with the Mimo. I saw the Mimo on YouTube and really caught my eye. It's substantially less expensive than iPad2 and it's USB powered device.I will share my perceptions here about the WH.

PFC told me they don't offer HE sensors in their control surface products (only in their consoles) because of what PFC claimed was "prohibitive expense of the HE sensors".

Hall Sensors are anything but expensive...I just retrofitted my entire PFC setup (yoke, rudder, brakes, and six quadrant axes) with HE sensors. The Allegro A1321 HE sensors I used cost me $1.55 each...and they're even less in bulk. The neodymium-iron-boron magnets I used were $1-2 each. The most expensive part of my retrofit were the two Leo Bodnar USB interface boards at around $70 each (there's a cheaper $40 version out there but it wasn't available when I needed it). The PFC electronics use very low resolution 8-bit A-D converters, which provide only 128 discrete steps across each axis range--even less when the null zones at the ends and centers of the axis ranges are taken out of the usable range. An HE sensor coupled with a 12-bit A-D converter is far more precise...4096 steps is the theoretical max, in practice I get more than 2048 usable discrete steps, with none of the problems associated with pots (wear, jitter etc).PFC's mechanical construction is top-notch. Their electronics are dated and nowhere near state of the art, which is a shame for such pricey gear. Prices of HE sensors and associated electronics are NOT prohibitive, and haven't been for years now.

Hall Sensors are anything but expensive...I just retrofitted my entire PFC setup (yoke, rudder, brakes, and six quadrant axes) with HE sensors. The Allegro A1321 HE sensors I used cost me $1.55 each...and they're even less in bulk. The neodymium-iron-boron magnets I used were $1-2 each. The most expensive part of my retrofit were the two Leo Bodnar USB interface boards at around $70 each (there's a cheaper $40 version out there but it wasn't available when I needed it). The PFC electronics use very low resolution 8-bit A-D converters, which provide only 128 discrete steps across each axis range--even less when the null zones at the ends and centers of the axis ranges are taken out of the usable range. An HE sensor coupled with a 12-bit A-D converter is far more precise...4096 steps is the theoretical max, in practice I get more than 2048 usable discrete steps, with none of the problems associated with pots (wear, jitter etc).PFC's mechanical construction is top-notch. Their electronics are dated and nowhere near state of the art, which is a shame for such pricey gear. Prices of HE sensors and associated electronics are NOT prohibitive, and haven't been for years now.

Hey Bob-I shared this sage engineering savvy advice with the head of sales for PFC. Hopefully he will recognize that someone threw the "bulls___it" flag and calle "BS" on him saying the HE sensors are missing for "COST" reasons. I would love to see PFC adopt HE technology throughout their product line. Can't help but think it would make their products more durable thus increasing their sales effectiveness as well. The fact that PFC is so disingenuous about HE Sensor technology is disturbing to me. I don't appreciate people who can't manage to speak directly and candidly. The products at issue seem severely marked up, and my own experience in dealing with their sales team was in plain language, hugely uninspiring. I blew two hours in my car plus standby time waiting for their sales manager to get off the phone. This proved to be an insurmountable task, so I never got to do a hands-on demo. Then the concern about the missing HE stuff and the b.s. about cost-prohibitive thus missing from their lower end controls... how can you call a $600 throttle quadrant (which requires a minimum of $395 master module as well) as being "low end"? I'm flying Warthog for $399. They can keep the $3000 worth of overpriced gear. BTW, they did offer me a huge discount on $3000 purchase. I think it was $100 off! I admire the fact that you could do the retrofit on your PFC gearr--VERY impressive! And your engineering expertise is even more stunning than your flight hours! If I had your talent, I might still buy the sow's ear and turn it into a silk purse. Since I am without your electrical engineering chops, I must wait for some manufacturer to proffer such a product.Robert McDonald

Hey Bob-I shared this sage engineering savvy advice with the head of sales for PFC. Hopefully he will recognize that someone threw the "bulls___it" flag and calle "BS" on him saying the HE sensors are missing for "COST" reasons. I would love to see PFC adopt HE technology throughout their product line. Can't help but think it would make their products more durable thus increasing their sales effectiveness as well. The fact that PFC is so disingenuous about HE Sensor technology is disturbing to me. I don't appreciate people who can't manage to speak directly and candidly. The products at issue seem severely marked up, and my own experience in dealing with their sales team was in plain language, hugely uninspiring. I blew two hours in my car plus standby time waiting for their sales manager to get off the phone. This proved to be an insurmountable task, so I never got to do a hands-on demo. Then the concern about the missing HE stuff and the b.s. about cost-prohibitive thus missing from their lower end controls... how can you call a $600 throttle quadrant (which requires a minimum of $395 master module as well) as being "low end"? I'm flying Warthog for $399. They can keep the $3000 worth of overpriced gear. BTW, they did offer me a huge discount on $3000 purchase. I think it was $100 off! I admire the fact that you could do the retrofit on your PFC gearr--VERY impressive! And your engineering expertise is even more stunning than your flight hours! If I had your talent, I might still buy the sow's ear and turn it into a silk purse. Since I am without your electrical engineering chops, I must wait for some manufacturer to proffer such a product.Robert McDonald

UPDATE***************************Precision Flight Controls passed Bob's HE Sensor and magnets info on to their support/engineering team, so we'll "see" if anything develops :)

Space is one issue. But also precision is another. I find the saitek yoke quite cumbersome sometimes and not very smooth at all. I've been contemplating the warthog for about 7-8months now.

Well, the new Warthog controller arrived yesterday, and it's one amazing piece(s) of hardware! Honestly, others have written about what a heavy-duty bit of gear this is - and it met and exceeded my expectations. From the moment I unboxed it, I was amazed. Setting up and configuring everything is a bit complex, I am using FSUIPC to configure it. Had a spot of issue with the SAITEK Combat Rudders (the 'sticking brake' problem - which I am still messing about with. READING THE MANUAL about the SAITEK clued me in about ticking the 'reverse' box in FSUIPC and in FSX. Still, it's not 100% rock solid, but I have gone forward and adjusted the sensitivity and dead-zones per the SAITEK INSTRUCTION BOOK and will conduct further testing tonight.FSUIPC is a bit complicated, but I feel like I'm starting to 'get it' finally - and when you fly using the HOTAS Joystick, you know why they use the word JOY in its name. The aircraft feels a lot 'heavier' and 'more real' if I had to characterize the difference. I was very conflicted about spending $400 for a control surface that doesn't 'match' what's really in a 737 cockpit. OTOH, $399 is WAY more palatable than $1295 for the Precision Flight Controls BOEING Yoke. Also, the WH has Hall Effect technology, the PFC $1295 beast does NOT. Also the amount of real estate occupied by the WH is considerably smaller.Overall impressions, love the LED's and lights on the throttle quadrant. There are enough buttons, levers and switches to fulfill even the most avid nerd's deepest desire, and it's a blast to configure things 'as you like them'. The slide lever on the TQ I'm using for 10-position flaps control, works a treat. I use one of the other buttons on the TQ for the parking brake on/off, and the Autopilot, TOGA, and so on seem generally able to be set up as you would like to.Couldn't be happier - want to buy some sort of dust-covers for these - as I couldn't imagine being without them. The sheer weight and machining the paint quality - it's incredible. I tossed my venerable T.Flight Hotas (also by Thustmaster) aside - I can easily see why this one is about 10x the price of the T.Flight. It's like the difference between elementary school and college. The T.flight is wonderful if you never laid eyes (or hands) on the Warthog.Hope this helps those who (like me) may have been conflicted about moving "up" the food ladder. Oh, btw, if I went for PFC, it'd be $1295 for the Yoke, plus about another grand for the 737 Throttle Quadrant and the minimum mandatory connection consolel required for the TQ to operate. That's another 6x the money for the Thrustmaster Warthog. And NO Hall Effect stuff in the PFC gear (yet). Note: The PFC consoles have Hall Effect technology - but not the control surfaces, according to Tracy, their sales manager.EDIT: I configured the Throttle so when you reach Idle Detent you lift and then pull back further, that's when the Reverser's come on! It's magical! And the positive click when you reach IDLE on throttle is a real "PLUS" for me, as my old T.Flight never consistently would reach actual "IDLE THRUST".

Thankyou very much for taking the time to reply with a very informative post. I'm still considering but will wait for the January sales and hope there is a discount offered somewhere on the TM Warthog.Thanks

Thankyou very much for taking the time to reply with a very informative post. I'm still considering but will wait for the January sales and hope there is a discount offered somewhere on the TM Warthog.Thanks

Everyone else said it best "GET ONE, you won't regret it..." I got mine from B&H in New York, $399 w free ship. That was the best deal I could find - arrived well protected and on-time (about 1 week). Amazon was 'out' of their own stock and was using a 'partner' to fulfill the orders... so I took a chance on B&H. No problems, and I used PayPal to pay it, so no worries about credit card security.Thanks to those who posted, I may need help fine-tuning a few things, not the least being the Combat rudder pedals.

Hm, its on sale now for Amazing for $398 Anyone predicting a price drop relatively soon? Local ebay (Australia) is selling it for $600+ , Amazon ship directly so I'll have to use a third party shipping company, and that could be pretty expensive.

Hm, its on sale now for Amazing for $398 Anyone predicting a price drop relatively soon? Local ebay (Australia) is selling it for $600+ , Amazon ship directly so I'll have to use a third party shipping company, and that could be pretty expensive.

I have no idea if the price will go down further. It's anyone's guess. I would imagine shipping to Australia is expensive.