Thurstmaster is no longer the gold standard for flight simulation.

[Toga10]

first off i would like to make clear this is more of a review.

When i purchased my Thrust master warthog an T flight rudder pedals i had been lead to belive that thrust master was the goldern standard for flight simulation equipment, and that even their 'budget' options were still quality products but after less than a year of ownership i was left experiencing a significant amount of buyers remorse. 

We'll start with the TM Warthog. initially on first impressions i was very impressed with the construction, weight and general quality of the stick and throttle. However, after only a few months of use i was already starting to have issues with the grip and base. lets start with the grip, it very quicky developed some play of about 1.5cm each way causing the stick to wobble and could no longer give small fine imputs when moving the stick. now for the base, after a few moths the base started to be bumpy if that makes sense. certian areas of the gimple were harder to move than others. something that i really wouldnt expect from a £350 product. also just under a year after purchase the base refused to detect any imputs. this was because during the manufactuing process the connectors on the base had not been plugged in properly and had worked loose. now lets move to the throttle. the throttle was largely fine apart from one big issue to me. the tension slider no longer works, i can move both throttles with my pinky finger something that really upsets me.

Now for the T Flight Rudder pedals. initially like the warthog i was still very impressed with the quality considering the price. however just over a year after the purchase the left rudder pedal in no other words snapped in half after what i would consider avarage use. To thrustmasters credit after a few weeks after contacting them they provided me with an email stating that the damage was a result of a factoy defect to help convince the retailer to replace the pedals. i was happy with this but unfortunatly, just 7 months later the exact same thing has happened to my replacement set. im currently trying to contact thrustmaster.

All of this has made me really not like thrustmaster due to the poor build quality of their products. I'd recomend you stear away from thrustmaster if posible and look into alternatives such as Virpl and WinWing 

https://virpil-controls.eu/

https://wwsimstore.com/STORE

[sirrah]

Just to put things in perspective:

I bought my TM Cougar back when it was released somewhere around 2000 iirc.

It lived a well used life for almost 2 decades before one of the gimbals broke. Great quality? probably not. One of its kind at the time? Certainly.

I also have a TM Warthog and the Hornet grip. Purchased about 3 years ago (2nd hand!) and it works like a charm. No problems with stiction, no wobbly grips, no "funny" outputs. And I've been using it extensively.

So, no offence meant, but either I'm just lucky, or not all TM products are worthless.

 

By the way, I also have the Virpil collective TCS plus base + Alpha-L (~€600,-), and although I really like it, it's not perfect

Edited January 30, 2022 by sirrah

[edmuss]

I also have a warthog that I've had for ten years, also purchased second hand, also used extensively for thousands of hours of flying helos in arma3, elite dangerous and the DCS ancestors.

I have had one failure which was a soldered wire broken on the connector in the handle, very simple fix. Motion in the base is still superb on the stick and all functions of the throttle. Oh and all the paint has flaked off the trigger.

I extend the stick by 75mm which gives a much better leverage ratio whilst still retaining enough centering spring.

[Toga10]

4 hours ago, sirrah said:

Just to put things in perspective:

I bought my TM Cougar back when it was released somewhere around 2000 iirc.

It lived a well used life for almost 2 decades before one of the gimbals broke. Great quality? probably not. One of its kind at the time? Certainly.

I also have a TM Warthog and the Hornet grip. Purchased about 3 years ago (2nd hand!) and it works like a charm. No problems with stiction, no wobbly grips, no "funny" outputs. And I've been using it extensively.

So, no offence meant, but either I'm just lucky, or not all TM products are worthless.

 

By the way, I also have the Virpil collective TCS plus base + Alpha-L (~€600,-), and although I really like it, it's not perfect

 

no offence taken, ive heard alot of good things about thrustmasters products and im sure those are true just through my own personal experience the build quality has been subpar to what i expected for the price.

[Lange_666]

6 hours ago, Toga10 said:

When i purchased my Thrust master warthog an T flight rudder pedals i had been lead to belive that thrust master was the goldern standard for flight simulation equipment

If you take the sticks gimbals in to consideration, it never was a golden standard, certainly not the Cougar and not the Warthog. There's just crap for that price tag.
And all those that are saying, mine is just fine, i'm 200% sure they never even felt the smoothness of DIY or the Virpil and other brands. Those brands just play in another league when it comes down to gimbal smoothness.

[_Hoss]

The HOTAS/HOSAS/SIMPIT discord channel has nothing but horror stories about Virpil, VKB, WinWing HOTAS being delivered with horrendous form, fit and function problems. They are either having to contact said mfg. to get replacement parts, or are sending them back, or trading around opinions of how to fix them so they will kind of work. On the Thrustmaster page there is hardly a whimper about stuff not working or breaking. (mostly TARGET problems) Well I'll take that back, there is grief over the F/A-18 grip. It has the same amount of buttons the F-16 grip has, so I don't see a reason to switch myself.  I've had my TMWH set up for over ten years, without a problem. If and when I ever have to replace mine it will be with TMWH pieces.  My Crosswinds are fantastic as well, had them for a few years and no problems there either.

Don't mean to ruffle anyone's feathers, but opinions are opinions, and a dime a dozen.  Mine included.

Cheers

Hoss

[Lange_666]

I was talking about the gimbals, nothing else. And Virpil/VKB gimbals are just way ahead of the TM ones.
Also, both the Cougar and the Warthog ministicks are not exactly state of the art either.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Lange_666

[Eugel]

9 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

And all those that are saying, mine is just fine, i'm 200% sure they never even felt the smoothness of DIY or the Virpil and other brands. 

Even though I´m using a WarBRD base now, I still say the Warthog was "fine". Sure, the gimbal isn´t perfect, the slew stick not ideal and the dying circuit boards are/were inexcusable.
But I´ve been happily using my Warthog for over a decade, something that WinWing and Virpil yet have to achieve.

In the end it comes down to "Do I want a good HOTAS for 400 bucks or a great one for 900 ?"

Edited January 31, 2022 by Eugel

[Burt]

I’m new to Virpil and now using the Virpil CM2 base with the TM warthog grip and I’m now a believer in Virpil. I also have the Realsimulator R3L and RS viper grip as a side stick for the viper. But I can’t keep my hands off the Virpil… it’s so smooth and love the tension adjustments on the base. My TM warthog Hotas was and still a great product but the price doesn’t match these days. I bought the TMWH Hotas 2 years ago for under $400 and the price now days are really alittle high. 
So back to the main topic, your right TM is not the golden standard these days.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Burt

[DeltaMike]

I dunno.  All they have to do is get rid of that abominable joystick base and they'd have a decently competitive, if expensive high end lineup.   But that base.... omg I'd rather use an xbox controller.   

[Husk]

I just have my Virpil VPC MongoosT-50CM2 Base;absolutely incredible..love it.I have used 2 Thrustmaster  warthog flightstick but after a long time they begin to stick,the wiring inside use and cut and the grease not helping and must be changed .Even i change the two plastic bushing they always go to sticking(i made two bushing in brass that solve a bit the gimble of the stick but it use the plastic surrounding them and must be fill with grease often...so when it rebeginning to freak again,i change for t-50CM2.The question is...why i don't make this change before...

[BuzzU]

12 hours ago, Husk said:

I just have my Virpil VPC MongoosT-50CM2 Base;absolutely incredible..love it.I have used 2 Thrustmaster  warthog flightstick but after a long time they begin to stick,the wiring inside use and cut and the grease not helping and must be changed .Even i change the two plastic bushing they always go to sticking(i made two bushing in brass that solve a bit the gimble of the stick but it use the plastic surrounding them and must be fill with grease often...so when it rebeginning to freak again,i change for t-50CM2.The question is...why i don't make this change before...

Warthog base cost $160. Virpil is $320. Do you expect them to be the same quality?

 

For the price they sell for the Warthog is fine.

[Littlefloor]

When I was young, I often listened to people say: if you don't know what's good, I guess you know what's expensive.
From what I've seen at Virpil and WWSimStore it seems they have very powerful and quite expensive things, but I would never recommend them to someone who hasn't spent at least a year in DCS to see if it's a game he wants to invest a lot of money for input units. I'd rather recommend something from the Thrustmaster program ... and I'm planning something like that myself.

But everyone has their own reason...

[Burt]

The Thrustmaster Warthog Hotas has served me well and I will never not recommend it. I will probably use the throttle for many more years to come. 

[Lange_666]

17 hours ago, BuzzU said:

Warthog base cost $160. Virpil is $320. Do you expect them to be the same quality?

Virpil WarBRD base is $220 instead of $320 (you don't need a Mongoose).
The difference in feel, smoothness and quality of the gimbal set is night and day.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Lange_666

[Hoirtel]

Just changed from warthog base and stick to virpil warbrd base and cm3 stick. Much better quality, gimbal is miles better and whole thing is light weight and precise. My warthog was ok but that gimble is cheap plastic ball design. I never thought it had the stiction until I did a full deflection with a single finger and then try to let it return as slow as possible, not smooth at all! 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Hoirtel

[sirrah]

3 hours ago, Hoirtel said:

Just changed from warthog base and stick to virpil warbrd base and cm3 stick. Much better quality, gimbal is miles better and whole thing is light weight and precise. My warthog was ok but that gimble is cheap plastic ball design. I never thought it had the stiction until I did a full deflection with a single finger and then try to let it return as slow as possible, not smooth at all! 

 

 

Reading this again about stiction. I've been wondering for a while now, do real life sticks have zero stiction?

Honest question (I really don't want to step on anyones toes here), but can anyone with real life experience confirm that in reality these center sticks do not have any stiction and truly move without any noticeable change in resistance?

 

I only have real life experience on the Viper, so I've no idea what a center stick movement really feels like.

Fwiw, the TM Cougar base I'm using now is modified with NNDan's spring mod. This means movement without even the smallest amount of stiction/change in resistance. And honestly, I don't like it at all. Again, I'm not judging others, just curious about this.

[Hoirtel]

20 minutes ago, sirrah said:

 

Reading this again about stiction. I've been wondering for a while now, do real life sticks have zero stiction?

Honest question (I really don't want to step on anyones toes here), but can anyone with real life experience confirm that in reality these center sticks do not have any stiction and truly move without any noticeable change in resistance?

 

I only have real life experience on the Viper, so I've no idea what a center stick movement really feels like.

Fwiw, the TM Cougar base I'm using now is modified with NNDan's spring mod. This means movement without even the smallest amount of stiction/change in resistance. And honestly, I don't like it at all. Again, I'm not judging others, just curious about this.

Umm, I very much doubt real life short fly by wire controls in real planes stick. This would be seriously bad design..... Considering a virpil base is a tiny fraction of the cost of a real fly by wire stick then I would see no reason why they would. My only IRL experience is with a small amount of light aircraft yolk and centre stick, not fly by wire. I  don't think you can really compare non-fly by wire in this case.

[sirrah]

30 minutes ago, Hoirtel said:

Umm, I very much doubt real life short fly by wire controls in real planes stick. This would be seriously bad design..... Considering a virpil base is a tiny fraction of the cost of a real fly by wire stick then I would see no reason why they would. My only IRL experience is with a small amount of light aircraft yolk and centre stick, not fly by wire. I  don't think you can really compare non-fly by wire in this case.

Many (most?) of the DCS modules are not fly by wire.

So, what's your experience on those non-fly by wire sticks? I assume these do have stiction/friction "issues", don't they?

[BuzzU]

6 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

Virpil WarBRD base is $220 instead of $320 (you don't need a Mongoose).
The difference in feel, smoothness and quality of the gimbal set is night and day.

 

I quoted Husk and he bought the Mongoose. That's what he was comparing to the Warthog.

 

I'm well aware of the WARBRD. I've owned one.

[Hoirtel]

1 hour ago, sirrah said:

Many (most?) of the DCS modules are not fly by wire.

So, what's your experience on those non-fly by wire sticks? I assume these do have stiction/friction "issues", don't they?

All DCS modules are fly by wire in this case. As they all connect via USB. Not really a fair comparison to compare a gaming joystick to a real plane stick connected with pulleys and cables, probably not fair to compare a fly by wire stick to a gaming joystick either, but I bet the principle is surprisingly similar. And my very small experience is that they do not stick, pilots check this before they take off.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Hoirtel

[Baldrick33]

12 minutes ago, Hoirtel said:

All DCS modules are fly by wire in this case. As they all connect via USB. Not really a fair comparison to compare a gaming joystick to a real plane stick connected with pulleys and cables, probably not fair to compare a fly by wire stick to a gaming joystick either, but I bet the principle is surprisingly similar. And my very small experience is that they do not stick, pilots check this before they take off.

 

force feedback steering wheels aim to provide the feel of mechanical steering devices in cars, my Frex shifter does a decent job at providing mechanical feel of a sequential shifter in a race car, in spite of only sending a simple micro switch signal to the PC. The point of simulation is to aim to replicate what they are simulating, be it using electronic devices to simulate mechanical ones. So comparing the flight sim hardware to real world mechanical ones is very valid in my view

[sirrah]

28 minutes ago, Hoirtel said:

All DCS modules are fly by wire in this case. As they all connect via USB. Not really a fair comparison to compare a gaming joystick to a real plane stick connected with pulleys and cables, probably not fair to compare a fly by wire stick to a gaming joystick either, but I bet the principle is surprisingly similar. And my very small experience is that they do not stick, pilots check this before they take off.

 

Touché... I guess if you look at it this way, all DCS modules (also the WW2 ones) are fly by wire, unless you are using a force feedback stick as @Baldrick33 rightly pointed out.

Personally, I can't imagine that any real life flight stick or yoke (fly by wire or not) is completely stiction free. But I'm happy to be corrected by anyone with, lets say F-18 or A-10 experience.

[Lange_666]

27 minutes ago, sirrah said:

Personally, I can't imagine that any real life flight stick or yoke (fly by wire or not) is completely stiction free.

Let's take something you can compare, like the steering wheel of a car. Does it has stiction/friction while moving?
All the cars that i have owned did not have stiction on the steering wheel.
I've flown a Cesna 172 and a sailplane (not as a pilot but they let me fly for a bit) and nor the 172 yoke nor the stick in the sailplane had any stickyness.
Resistance yes, but that's a different thing....

[Hoirtel]

1 hour ago, Baldrick33 said:

force feedback steering wheels aim to provide the feel of mechanical steering devices in cars, my Frex shifter does a decent job at providing mechanical feel of a sequential shifter in a race car, in spite of only sending a simple micro switch signal to the PC. The point of simulation is to aim to replicate what they are simulating, be it using electronic devices to simulate mechanical ones. So comparing the flight sim hardware to real world mechanical ones is very valid in my view

 

1 hour ago, sirrah said:

Touché... I guess if you look at it this way, all DCS modules (also the WW2 ones) are fly by wire, unless you are using a force feedback stick as @Baldrick33 rightly pointed out.

Personally, I can't imagine that any real life flight stick or yoke (fly by wire or not) is completely stiction free. But I'm happy to be corrected by anyone with, lets say F-18 or A-10 experience.

The statement was if the stiction experienced on a WT was realistic. It isn't really the same thing as force feed back . Force feedback is still not anything other than simulated and software/wire driven! I mean none of this really matters, if you are happy with the sticky plastic gimble in a WT then great, maybe yours isn't that bad, even better. My virpil does not stick at all and I like that.