New Benchmark in Fancy Joysticks Set (October 10, 2010)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
There haven't been a whole lot of reasons to buy an elaborate new joystick rig lately, but Thrustmaster is providing some new hardware to tempt flight/space sim fans. The new HOTAS Warthog A-10 replica setup will begin shipping this month for a whopping $500. The joystick sports 19 buttons plus a hat switch, and the dual throttle has 17 buttons as well. There's a further 15 switches and 5 lighted displays on the control panel base. Just what you need to play Microsoft Flight!





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The HOTAS WARTHOG™ joystick is the result of an intense collaboration between Thrustmaster's development teams and members of the simmer community. Exchanges and studies were carried out constantly throughout the product's development phase, in order to create a joystick which meets the most specific and precise requirements of the experts. The result is a replica set of the joystick, dual throttle system and dual throttle control panel of the U.S. Air Force A-10C attack aircraft.

Weighing in at more than 6.5kg and using metal for the joystick, throttle handles & bases, the HOTAS WARTHOG™ joystick is physically imposing. When you take into account the 55 fully programmable action buttons and 2 four-direction hat switches, each with a built-in push button (this is the first joystick in the world to incorporate such a feature), it becomes clear that the HOTAS WARTHOG™ is in a class of its own, best described in terms of superlatives.
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Original update published on October 10, 2010
 
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It's great to see Thrustmaster taking onboard community suggestions to fix their products :) The addition of Hall effect sensors instead of POTS make it one sweet joystick. I own a HOTAS cougar and the POTS on those things die pretty quickly, but there are lots of community modifications (gimbal replacements, potentiometer replacements) that improve the stick dramatically. I was wondering if thrustmaster was ever going to bring out another stick. It's awesome that it's compatible with the Cougar as well (both handles can be swapped). Also for those interested, there's a 3rd party HOTAS setup modelled on the F-18...
 
I'm not too sure I like the trend towards ultra-realistic joysticks in the upper-end market. I mean, sure, there was the F-15 joystick fifteen years ago, but that didn't prompt Thrustmaster and CH to completely remodel their entire product lines around them. Now it looks like they are. The new Saitek stick is pretty similar, and true to modern flight controls (and the old F-15 stick) it barely even moves.

I don't know if this is going to be the new standard or if it's just a trend that'll pass (like force feedback?) Until then, I guess I'll have to stick with the last generation. (For the sake of economy, too... were joysticks always so expensive?)
 
Nice...

Then again, the HOTAS Cougar itself wasn't that cheap itself when it came out. And a fully modded one that fixes all the issues (new gimbals and hall sensors) easily is another $500+. $300+ if you go for a strain gauge a la the F-16.

At least they've replaced the crappy pots. Wonder if they're fixing the gimbals...
 
Want *drool*. Cool stick, but I worry a bit about the stick part. That base doesn't look very stable.

@Darkmage: Do you know if they changed anything with the gimbals? I don't have any problems with other parts (besides the paint coming off at certain spots), but I already had to replace the internal metal parts of my Cougar.
 
I can't see such high-end oriented joysticks getting many purchases, but I'm not the target market. I suppose if you're a flight-sim addict, such a purchase would be justified. I've not used my joystick for months, so the lower-end model I do have is useful for barely over a handful of titles.
 
DaveO said:
I can't see such high-end oriented joysticks getting many purchases, but I'm not the target market. I suppose if you're a flight-sim addict, such a purchase would be justified. I've not used my joystick for months, so the lower-end model I do have is useful for barely over a handful of titles.
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Yeah. I have a Saitek X52, made out of plastic with a built-in digital clock (the higher end model was made out of metal, with a programmable calculator-type display). I paid a hundred dollars for it, which seems exorbiant to me, but isn't, not really, not when Thrustmaster and CH and others are charging that much for a stick or throttle alone. The biggest irony is that, while I've played around with it some for different things, I don't think I've ever once used it for its intended purpose - flying high-end flight sims. The closest I've ever come was with Wings of Prey, where a stick is a necessity (it certainly felt like a godsend), but I have IL-2 with Pacific Fighters in a drawer and I've never played them in two years.

The thing about a stick like the X52, though, is that it fills a gap - it's fairly solid (not serious quality, but moreso than a flimsy Logitech stick) and programmable; fair deal of buttons, but it's not so expensive that you have to justify it substantially unless you're simply loaded. Stick and throttle with three hat switches and two dozen buttons for a hundred dollars; I can live with that. I don't think that anybody is making joysticks like that for less than two hundred now, and they're all going into the hardcore end - split throttles for seperate engines, immobile stick - it's as if Sunkist's F-15, which was something of a novelty when it first came out, is suddenly the new standard. For quite a while flight sims have been moving steadily towards a very very serious, professional standard built around realism and models to the point where sometimes I think that the term "game" doesn't even fit, where the idea of fun is almost a side-effect, like something you get gazing out the window on a long road trip. The one thing that kept them from totally sliding into that range was the availability of good solid stick packages like Saitek's; now that it seems that they're abandoning that market set, they've chosen to totally and unashamedly embrace their real market. Not really surprising, but I feel like something symbolic has passed.
 
Sweet. This would be part of my Wing Commander Holy Grail list: to acquire that Rapier from Luxembourge, integrate a huge computer monitor into the front, and stick this joystick inside of it.
 
In the flightsim community, we have a name for that - "simpits".

Some guy managed to get the cockpit section of a 737 and turned it into a full simulator, though I don't think it has motion. Full glass and everything.

But when I was researching it, people made simpits out of wood and surplus ejection seats (with the HOTAS Cougar, people were doing F-16 simpits). There was a site I was watching where a guy managed to find the remnants of an F-15 cockpit (used for target practice) and was fixing it up for simulation purposes.

I gave up because I don't have the skills (anything requiring use of my hands to shape anything turns into a mess), nor the cash (these people were dropping 10-100K+ plus tons of time. Neither of which I have).

Of course, though, they're pretty cool still, and if you can afford it, do it!
 
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