Stick Advice

[Hannibal]

Hannibal,


 The warthog stick and throttle are sepperate for each other,both have their own usb plug and I see no reason why you couldn't use "just" the stick with some other throttle.


  Unfortunately I don't think you can purchase the stick without the throttle,atleast not as of yet
 

Thanks for the info. Maybe I will buy the Warthog and put the throttle up for sale to recoup some of that money, though I know I would just wind up keeping the throttle once it was in my hands, unless I had a buyer lined up before it arrived.

[Reschke]

I don't know that one will work without the other if you are using the TM TARGET software. I think all the brains on the setup are in the throttle but I am not sure. I know that both items have a separate firmware though. Honestly Hannibal; if you get the whole Warthog setup I honestly believe that you will end up keeping the throttle. Its hands down the best flight sim kit I have ever used.

[Warmongo]

Hi Hannibal,

I purchased the Warthog and used it for two months. It was great at the beginning although I found it to be real big and stiff (no pun intended) and needed to be bolted down to my nice cherry wood desk. It's a beatiful, solid and heavy piece of hardware. Mine worked flawlessly.

I noticed I had trouble in knife fights and my fighter score suffered big time. It's great if you only do B&Z. I was also getting cramps in my right hand and had to map views to the lower hat. I also felt the trigger was a bit stiff and was throwing off my aim so I mapped that to the throttle. By the way I am 6 feet tall and 185 pounds and athletic. Size 8 in surgical gloves which is fairly large size. Eventually I gave up on it and I am back to my CH setup (velcroed to my desk). Warthog is great for jet simulators but no for AH in my humble opinion. CH does evrything well for much less money. My dos chavos...:-)

[Hannibal]

Valuable information. Thanks to everyone for the help. This is a fantastic community. I just realized if I bought the Warthog I would need pedals too so now it's definitely ruled out. Maybe in the future if the price goes down and the economy picks up I'll get one, but I've decided to order a CH stick and pedals. I just picked up a logitech 3d pro to use in the meantime, and I must say I am surprised. It's actually a nice stick for 35 bucks. I'm sure I will hate it by the time my CH stuff gets here though.

As far as rudder pedals go, I was wondering if the CH pedals being so close together still allowed room for having your stick center. Usually the base of my stick is between my legs. From what I've read it would probably be best to have the CH on my side anyway, so maybe I should just start playing that way. I'm also wondering about the noise of rudder pedals. It's not really an issue, I am just curious how noisy the pedals are.

[Reschke]

Hi Hannibal,
 Warthog is great for jet simulators but no for AH in my humble opinion.

Which is why we all have different opinions. I don't have my Warthog bolted to anything at all but it is sitting on my desk centered in front of my monitor with my throttle beside it. I don't have problems in flying any aircraft in AH or any other games whether they be jet or prop based. BUT it is personal preference and probably from Warmongo pushing to hard to overcompensate due to being used to playing with the boy band, toy stuff from CH....hehehe!

I like CH stuff; its a good kit and reasonably priced....I just don't like it on my desk or in my hands.

For rudder pedals I have really liked my Saitek Pro Pedals and the guys I have chatted with that have their new Combat pedals say they are top notch as well. Nice placement wider than CH pedals and easy adjustments from what I have found and AH recognizes them easily.

[TequilaChaser]

Ch sticks are not high tension but they are very precise.

Good Morning Hannibal,
as Urchin posted, CH sticks do not have a "high tension" on them, but one way around this I have used in the past is using 1 to 4 rubber bands on each axis
( NOTE: doing this to a new stick will cause one to void the warranty by breaking the warranty tape when trying to open it )
- one could opt out for higher tension springs but I would not recommend this route, for the rubberbands are cheap and easy fix that allows multitude of adjustment settings

I in past years have tinkered around with this and found for my personal taste, I like 3 regular rubber bands per axis for proper tension....... and was amazed at how easy it was to do and how it did not affect the stick in anyway... the gameport fighterstick I did this to lasted from like 96 til 08 with nary a problem and I gave it to another squad mate when I got my USB setup...

as for centering the CH Fiterstick between the legs and using rudders - This is nearly impossibly to do because of the Closeness of the CH Pro Pedals and the wide base of the Fiterstick

as for the Pro Pedals being noisy, I have never had a noisy pair of CH Pro Pedals even when not using headphones and having the game's sound muted or turned way down......

hope this is helpful - 

TC

[Hannibal]

Very helpfull. I was wondering about that. Sounds like an easy fix, but don't the rubber bands tend to wear out? And more importantly, don't they tend to wear out at different rates? Are you saying that the original rubber bands you put in it lasted 12 years? Or are you saying  using the rubber bands had no adverse effects on the stick over the 12 years? Either way I am happy to hear of a solution. Warmongo's refering to CH stuff as "boy band toy stuff" has me worried.

[633DH98]

I seem to recall a post somewhere with photos of someone using condom rings for extra tension.   

[TequilaChaser]

Very helpfull. I was wondering about that. Sounds like an easy fix, but don't the rubber bands tend to wear out? And more importantly, don't they tend to wear out at different rates? Are you saying that the original rubber bands you put in it lasted 12 years? Or are you saying  using the rubber bands had no adverse effects on the stick over the 12 years? Either way I am happy to hear of a solution. Warmongo's refering to CH stuff as "boy band toy stuff" has me worried.

the use of rubberbands had no adverse effects on the joystick.....yes over time they would become weak and break ( I would assume ).. I did not use them the whole 12 years I had the stick. I tinkered with it after using the CH FighterStick w/ Forcefeedback because the transition back to the regular fighterstick had me a bit hamfisted for a while.....
I only used the rubberbands solidly for about a yr and 1/2 til I got back to the easier smoother movement of the Fighterstick as it comes from the factory.... during that time I did not have no rubber bands break on me........ it did take me about a week or so to get the correct tension I was looking for and slowly worked my way down from there...

I wouldn't worry about Warmongo's reference to the boy band toy stuff or whatever...

is just a suggestion.... I would not void the warranty on any new stick, although I myself have never had to RMA any CH product I have owned.... and have only replaced 1 pot in one of my sticks since I been using CH back in the mid 90's

hope this helps

[Hannibal]

Thanks for the clarification. At the moment I am so surprised by the logitec that I bought for 35 bucks to use as a stand in, that I'm thinking about just ordering parts and trying to make my own stick and pedals. Either way I have more time than I thought I had to make a decision. I'll definitely keep the tip in mind though. There's still a good chance I'll end up with a CH in my hand one day.

[TequilaChaser]

There's still a good chance I'll end up with a CH in my hand one day.

Hannibal,
if you ever do decide to go and get a CH stick, you do not necessarily have to buy "NEW" stuff .....check out eBay or other auction sites or the Classifieds here on the AH BBS... out of all the accumulated CH hardware I have obtained in the past, I have yet to find any that had issues to where one could not play any games with em.......

so you might save yourself some major money buying used....unless you just want Brand New stuff with the warranty, etc....

best of luck either way


TC

[Vipermann]

I have a cougar that I might be willing to sell to a good home. PM me if your interested

[Roki]

I just picked up a logitech 3d pro to use in the meantime, and I must say I am surprised. It's actually a nice stick for 35 bucks. I'm sure I will hate it by the time my CH stuff gets here though.

Good stick at first, but it won't last forever. I've repaired my Logitech's rudder pot twice, and my next solution in the same price class might be a Thrustmaster T.16000M.

[Hannibal]

Good stick at first, but it won't last forever. I've repaired my Logitech's rudder pot twice, and my next solution in the same price class might be a Thrustmaster T.16000M.

Yeah I spoke too soon on that one. This logitech is a piece of garbage.

[Roki]

This logitech is a piece of garbage.

Nope. It's just cheap stick of old design. Cheap sticks can take only few months of active flying, and then you'll see spiking and calibration problems. Extreme 3D was also designed before HAL-sensors became cheap enough for low level stcks. Only thing that I can complaint of, is that there really is design flaw in rudder pot attachment, but the stick is very cheap for few months of fun.