I looked at those earlier BaldEagl. Couple of questions for you though.
How comfortable is the front mounted throttle? Was it difficult to get feel for?
What is that red switch in the front for?
How many total buttons are on the stick itself (ie 1 trigger and 3 buttons on top)? I have been having a hard time finding a close u p pic of stick. The one on Saitek website does not show any of these clealry.
Thanks
I assume you're talking about the Av8tor?
I don't use the throttle. I never have used a joystick throttle. I've got mine mapped to my mouse wheel. My joystick is in my left hand (left handed) with my mouse in my right. I've also never used a hat switch for views. I've always used the num pad which I got used to 12 years ago and never changed so I map my hat switch for other things. I can quickly jump from views to throttle then back without losing a step with my right hand.
Now back to the throttle. There is one nice feature and that's that it's a dual throttle control for multi-engined aircraft which can be locked together for single engines. I've used it a little and it's not hard to get to (I mapped throttle 2 to it for a short while, using mouse for throttle 1)
The red switch in the front is an A/B selector. It allows you to have two settings for each button, or to switch between aircraft and vehicle modes for instance.
There are the main fire trigger, an 8 way hat switch and 3 buttons on the stick plus 8 buttons on the base (those toggle switches are really just two way buttons). I've got fire all, fire primary, fire secondary, flaps up, flaps down and zoom toggle all mapped to the stick now (remember, I'm using my hat for a few of these). I've got elevator trim up and down, combat trim, set trim, gear, tail hook and dive flaps mapped to the lower toggles. I really can't find a use for all these buttons but having my trim functions on the toggles is really a nice thing.
So, to answer your question, counting the trigger, there are 12 buttons x2 for a total of 24 buttons plus the hat.