Seems to me that saitek has purposefully abandoned its X-55 and will soon be selling its follow on, the X-56 Pro.  Saitek claims that they have addressed the quality issues with its X-55 and corrected them in the X-56.  The biggest deal of the X-56 are its two extra mini-sticks, each located by your thumbs, which when set up appropriately will yield 6DOF (2 DOF on each stick) vehicle control.  Their video shows how they are clearly targeting the space sim genre:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4urwK7iGhs

Seems like a cool idea, but what can flight simmer do with those two extra mini sticks?  Plus the cost of admission is really getting up there at $250. I'll wait for its release and some serious reviews before passing any judgement....amazon is taking pre-orders if anyone is interested.

I'm following up this product, too. Seems that Saitek and Madcatz is trying to recover itself from its bad experience with the X55.

Ed

I'm done with Saitek. The X55 was a letdown and now they want to sell me another product to make up for it? No thanks.

I don't know about the HOTAS being designed for a target market of space simmers.  The name "Rhino" is taken from the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and supposedly Saitek designed the Z-56 to mimic the F/A-18E/F HOTAS.

 

The mini-stick is used as a mouse to select targets on the Radar DDI (and other DDI functions).

 

 

Best wishes!

I don't know about the HOTAS being designed for a target market of space simmers.  The name "Rhino" is taken from the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and supposedly Saitek designed the Z-56 to mimic the F/A-18E/F HOTAS.

 

The mini-stick is used as a mouse to select targets on the Radar DDI (and other DDI functions).

 

 

Best wishes!

 

Well they are pushing it as a  "Proflight Space series" and "Space combat system for PC" if you watch the video

Huh.  I'm torn on Saitek.  On one hand, I feel burned from the quick rather demise of my x55, but on the other they do deserve a bit of kudos for producing 'civilian' flight sim specific kit at a low price point. My Saitek TPM unit, for example, is an extremely well built piece of kit.

 

I doubt I'll take them up on this stick, at least not right away. To be honest, I would take their claim to have improved the quality of this over the x55 with a grain of salt, since it looks almost exactly like the x55 but with two extra mini-sticks and some blue paint.  I think I'll hold out for a year or so and see how the reviews go.

 

However, if they would sell *just* the stick part, then I might reconsider, since I have a perfectly good x55 throttle unit already.

 

It's also worth noting that the idea of two sticks, a left and a right, have become a common idea in the space sim world, at least in Star Citizen.

In this reddit topic, saitek is posting that though the externals appear the same, the internals have been revamped: https://www.reddit.com/r/hotas/comments/4cpv6m/saitek_x56_pro/

I really wanted to get the X-55 but the constant reports of quality issues kept me at bay.  I hope they are not just pulling some marketing spin with this.  My 9 years old X52 Pro is still functioning well, though only after a bit of deep cleaning from time to time.  If the X-56 turns out to be as reliable I might be tempted for I've always want more rotor axes for trim controls, especially for flying warbirds (though IL-2 BoS has purposefully borked these sort of mappings, claiming it is a cheat...lazy programmers IMO: add a "realistic" slew rate for trim and problem solved).