By Javier Rollon · 2023-04-12
I've been building flight sim aircraft for over twelve years. In that time, I've used everything from a basic Logitech stick to a full Brunner yoke with force feedback. Here's what I've learned about hardware — specifically, what's worth the money and what's marketing dressed up as necessity.
This might sound strange coming from someone who makes products for flight simmers, but: your first hundred hours should be with whatever controller you already own. An Xbox controller. A cheap stick. Even keyboard and mouse, though I wouldn't recommend it past the trial phase. The reason is simple — you don't know what kind of flying you enjoy yet. If you spend 400 euros on a yoke and realize you prefer fighter jets, that yoke is going to collect dust.
I tested my CRJ-200 for hundreds of hours using a Logitech 3D Pro that cost less than a restaurant dinner. It worked fine. The aircraft's systems don't care what's moving the control surfaces — a 30-euro stick deflects the ailerons identically to a 3,000-euro Brunner. The sim doesn't know the difference.
Sticks are for fighters and aerobatics. Yokes are for airliners and GA. That's the conventional wisdom, and it's mostly right but not entirely.
The SIAI-Marchetti SF-260 has a stick in real life — it's a military trainer built for aerobatics. Flying it with a yoke feels wrong because the control throw is different. A yoke gives you about 90 degrees of rotation per direction. A stick gives you full-range deflection with wrist movement. For snap rolls and precision aerobatics, that difference matters.
But my Jetstream 32? It has a yoke in the real cockpit. Using a stick to fly the Jetstream works fine for casual flying, but crosswind landings where you need small, precise roll corrections at 130 knots? A yoke gives you better resolution in that narrow range of control input where precision counts most.
If I had to choose between upgrading my stick or my throttle, I'd upgrade the throttle every time. Here's why: modern aircraft spend 90% of their flight on autopilot. Your stick input happens during takeoff and landing — maybe ten minutes per flight. But power management is continuous. Monitoring torque, managing fuel flow, adjusting N1 targets, setting go-around thrust — these are throttle operations, and having physical levers with detents and friction adjustments makes them vastly more intuitive.
For turboprop aircraft like the Jetstream, a separate prop lever and condition lever are ideal. That means a quadrant with at least three axes. The Thrustmaster TCA Officer Pack handles this reasonably well for the price. If you're flying jets exclusively, the Thrustmaster Boeing or Airbus throttle quadrants are excellent — real detents for idle, climb, flex, and TOGA thrust settings. I tested the Airbus version with the A320 systems and the detent positions matched the real gate positions almost perfectly.
Most simmers skip rudder pedals. Most simmers also wonder why their crosswind landings are terrible. Coincidence? No.
You cannot fly a proper crosswind approach without rudder input. The twist axis on a joystick is better than nothing, but your wrist is trying to control two axes simultaneously — roll and yaw — and under stress (gusting crosswind at 200 feet AGL), your brain prioritizes one and forgets the other. Separate pedals free your hands to focus on pitch and roll while your feet handle the sideslip.
I can't test engine-out procedures on the Jetstream properly without pedals. The asymmetric thrust requires significant rudder force to maintain directional control. Twist axis just doesn't have the resolution or the feel. If you fly twin-engine aircraft in X-Plane, pedals are not optional. They're essential.
After twelve years, I use a mid-range setup: Logitech yoke for airliner work, VKB Gladiator for fighters and aerobatics, Thrustmaster TFRP pedals, and a TCA throttle quadrant. Total investment over the years: maybe 600 euros. Not cheap, but not the multi-thousand-euro cockpit builds you see on YouTube either. This setup lets me test every aircraft I build across every flight regime. And honestly, the biggest upgrade I made wasn't hardware — it was a proper desk mount that eliminated the stick sliding around during aggressive maneuvers. Twenty euros for a clamp that improved my testing more than any 200-euro peripheral ever did.
Javier Rollon develops aircraft for JRollon Planes. Follow on Twitter.