Lost my Yoke and Throttle in two weeks!

[NoahBryant 26]

This sucks! About two weeks ago I lost my old X-52. It finally just died on me. I wasn't real upset though because my birthday is coming up and, thanks to my lovely wife, there's a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog sitting in the box at her office waiting for my birthday.

 

But tonight, I just lost my Saitek yoke/throttles. Well technically it's just the throttles that quit working, but still!

 

Anyway - sure I could just by another Saitek throttle, but before I do that I'm kind of curious if there's anything else out there I should look at. I've used it for 4 years or so. I was happy with it, but I know it's not the best piece of the hardware in the world. Any suggestions for a good yoke?

 

Edit: Post number 1,000 (oops, I was wanting to do something crazy for post number 1000)

[pmanhart 176]

Although there will no doubt be disagreements from other users, in the $100 range you cannot go wrong with a CH Yoke. My CH Eclipse has been going strong for years, as has my CH Throttle Quadrant.

[Ben Cap 89]

I have the CH Throttle quadrant and I love it. It has worked much better than my Saitek throttles ever did.

[NoahBryant 26]

I was looking at the eclipse actually, but I couldn't make out what some of the buttons were. What do you use for trim? It looked like the only buttons in the thumb area were left-right rocker buttons.

 

What are those black lever looking things on either side of the column?

 

Thanks for the input guys.

 

I also don't need to stay in the 100 dollar range, although the $1100 yoke I saw on another thread is too much. It doesn't seem like there's anything between that though, am I wrong?

[pmanhart 176]

I was looking at the eclipse actually, but I couldn't make out what some of the buttons were. What do you use for trim? It looked like the only buttons in the thumb area were left-right rocker buttons.

 

The left thumb area has two standard buttons, plus the POV hat. I actually set the POV hat to function as a elevator (up/down) and rudder (left/right) trim switch in FSUIPC (you can do it in CH Control Manager as well). I use the right hat as a POV instead. I used to use the wheels as trim switches (the two wheels on the center of the yoke act as three buttons each, one button for each direction when it is turned and a center button if you press down on the wheel). It was inconvenient to take my hand off the yoke and throttle to adjust the trim, hence the change. I now use the vertical wheel as zoom in/out and default zoom, and the horizontal wheel as next view/previous view and default VC view since I usually only operate those controls once I don't need one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttle.

 

The crazy looking black things are paddles for rudder control if you need them. I actually have that axis disabled as I use rudder pedals.

 

The Eclipse is a great buy and worth every dollar, but if you don't need as many buttons or the additional axis for rudder you can still get the cheaper flight yoke, http://www.chproducts.com/Flight-Sim-Yoke-v13-d-705.html for around $100 US.

 

Edit: Thought I should add that after pairing up with a CH Throttle Quadrant, http://www.chproducts.com/Throttle-Quadrant-v13-d-718.html , I have the three axes on the yoke set to flaps, cowl flaps, and spoilers.

[NoahBryant 26]

Awesome info Phillip, thanks.

 

Regarding the throttles, how do you handle reverse thrust? On the saitek there is a detent, and below the detent the throttle sends a button press event which I have used FSUIPC to get to function sort of like reverse thrust. Is there anything like that on the CH?

[Barnstormer1 0]

I have worn out the detents on my CH Products throttle quad and they wont send the parts to fix it. "I'm not qualified" @#$$#@$@. I service 1000000 dollar equipment. Cheap plastic crap! My next quad will be a Go Flight.

[NoahBryant 26]

So it has detents then? Like the Saitek?