Hotas Cougar vs. Warthog quality comparison

[xoxen]

Hi folks,

I recently bought a Warthog and sent my Cougar into retirement. I would like to do a small comparison for others as I was searching for this before moving but did not find anything worthy for me.

For the Cougar I have to mention I did the throttle mod (soaped tape around the axis + aluminum foil at the break, btw works like charm) and also bought Magoo´s mod which takes care of the abrasion of the gimbals in a good way (details can be googled). So it has zero play and is in a very good condition. But in regards to precision I thought I better go for the Warthog with Hall sensors and it helped me e. g. to improve my air refueling abilities. So this point goes to the Warthog.

Coming from the Cougar I was spoiled by massive metal engineering. I never had issues electrical wise and took care about the critical points (stickiness of the throttle and play of the gimbals). Only the precision is less in direct comparison, so an important difference.

Anyway, I have to mention that I´m happy with flying with the Warthog and enjoy the mentioned precision. But there are some details I dislike and I would like to highlight. My Cougar cost me 165,-€ when it was new and I thought spending 300,-€ for the Warthog only can be an upgrade, also quality wise. Then I put my hands around the Throttle and Stick and the first disillusion happened to me. The Throttle handles can be pulled slightly upward to get them from off to idle. This is fine. But the levers also move slightly left and right which gives them a feeling of weakness. So there is play which I did not know from my Cougar. Additionally the Cougar is better in the hands, the ergonomics is better from my point of view.

Now to the stick. I am used to have no play (Cougar) and this is something which I expected from a 300,-€ hardware (Warthog) as well. But this was not the case. The stick has no play in X-axis but a small one in Y-axis. Not really much but I noticed it. Additionally there is play in the nonexistent Z-axis. I can slightly rotate clockwise and counter clockwise. I can feel a little spring force which moves it back to the original center position. I expect this to be the force from the 4 springs inside of the stick base.

As I had a closer look into the Cougar gimbals quite often I can compare them in a good way to the ones of the Warthog. Cougar = die cast aluminum; Warthog = plastic (PA6.6?). The Cougar solution is not good in terms of wear as stated above. Additionally you can feel the force of each axis when moving the stick e.g. to the lower right corner. Here the Warthog is much more even in force independent of the direction you move the stick to. So here the Warthog gives a much better feeling when flying.

But the plastic gimbals give me a quite cheap impression. I only can hope that the plastic is a high quality one and I will not see wear here as there is no chance to fix it like I did with Magoo´s mod (by the way, on a request at TM about the possibility to buy them as spare parts I got not even an answer, EDIT: in the meantime I had a very good conversation with TM and was able to order the lower and inner part of the Articulation Sphere just for security reasons). Additionally there is a stickiness in this connection. I read a lot about this in different forums and can confirm it. I´m just in the process of having a look for a good grease to buy in Germany to get rid of this.

My conclusion is, that I´m very happy with the Warthog and do not regret that I spent this money. But if you own a good Cougar like I do I´m not sure if I would spend the money again. Hall sensors for the Cougar would have been an alternative but even higher in price. Maybe I´m whining at a high level, no, I am whining at a high level as both sticks are really good. But the Cougar is 10+ years of age and still in very good condition. What I see and read about the Warthog let me doubt it will get as old. Hopefully I´m wrong on this. Maybe there are some mods available in the future which are taking care of the disadvantages.

I hope you understand what I wrote as I did this in the lunch break and not being a native speaker. And I hope this helps others in the same situation I was in.

Watch your six,

Xoxen

 

P.S.: This is my personal feeling, maybe others have a completely different impression. But being a mechanical engineer I really take care about quality and good engineering.

Edited September 23, 2015 by xoxen
fixed mistakes, new information

[Rogue Trooper]

Good review and a nice balanced comparison of these two Hotas systems.

[FeistyLemur]

I mentioned it somewhere else and had been thinking about it, but since you're a mechanical engineer you should be a good person to ask.

 

Do you think it would be feasible to mill a copy of the entire gimbal out of aluminum or stainless steel?

 

I've only sent one email to Thrustmaster about a question and they didn't answer me either.

[xoxen]

Hi FeistyLemur,

even though I´m a mechanical engineer I do not work in the production of parts, respectively my knowledge about milling might be old fashioned. I know a lot is possible with CNC mashines and I´m quite sure they are feasable to produce the parts out of SST or Aluminum. What I fear is the roundness of the parts. When you mill them you have to do it step by step on round surfaces. This is something which can be seen on the surface and I doubt they are smooth enough to be used as gimbals without being polished.

I heard about a way to use metal similar to plastic in 3D "printers". This is something I can imagine in a better way but have no clue about the costs.

I´m working with plastic parts and can ask some people if this is something to think about further.

In another thread of mine (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=146318) I got a contact of a guy in the IL2 forums. This guy seem to have 3D model(s) at least of the inner ball. I did not register so far as everything is in russian language and I did not find the time to use google translator. Maybe somebody is already registered there and can contact him.

Rgds,

Roland

Edited August 27, 2015 by xoxen

[FeistyLemur]

There's a company in the United States which prints 3d metal. But I'm sure it's extremely expensive. They're most notable for printing the worlds first all metal printed gun. They also sell them and charge 11000 dollars for them. Also I have no idea if you can do that in a non magnetic metal.

 

Someone else mentioned making the parts on a lathe would be possible. I guess I do have multiple millwrights in my family, I should probably ask one of them. My problem is I'm not willing to gut my stick for experimental parts creation, at least not right now because I just got it and I'm having too much fun with it.

[nervousenergy]

I don't suppose IJ is still in business... his gimbals for the Cougar were legendary.

[xoxen]

My problem is I'm not willing to gut my stick for experimental parts creation, at least not right now because I just got it and I'm having too much fun with it.

 

This is exactly the same problem I have. I found a 3D model of the inner ball and have it on my computer now (thanks to google translator as my russian skills are very very limited). If I ever need to use it, hopefully not. But a set of metal gimbals sound great. Unfortunately I have no chance to do something by my own because of no access to machines. I will follow the development of this within the community. I heard of a guy thinking about new gimbals for the Warthog, nothing to speak about now, but maybe in the future.