I used to have a CH fighterstick with saitek pro pedals, and no throttle. I wanted a throttle and looking at the price of not so good throttles alone, I picked the second hand X65F at a decent price. I was curious in the technology and my fighterstick wasn't centering ok anymore.
I used the X65F for a couple of weeks. As said before it doesn't move, it senses the forces you are applying into it. It can be used without bolting it down to the desk, as you will most likely never use the maximum forces it can be set to. The amount of force required for a said input can be changed at any time via buttons on the throttle as some planes need a lighter touch in the controls and you might get tired of pulling 2kg just to keep fly straight. 4 presets can be set on the throttle.
The HOTAS is mostly metal, except for the hats and buttons. It feel very solid. Hats can be exchanged between the different positions as you like.
In aces high, expect to spend a week tuning your controls. Once you feel comfortable enough, the feeling you get of the plane is incomparable to anything I've tried before, including force feedback. Every plane feels so different, it is hard to describe with my limited english. Despite that the stick doesn't move the immersion is AAA+ you literally can feel the torque trying to spin constantly your airplane and you have to fight against it. THe stick is VERY precise to the point that your hand and muscles are the limit, and that is the problem of the stick. It is too demanding on the pilot, every little unwanted variation in your input (shaky hands for example) is perfectly reproduced on your airplane, making the typhoon for example very challenging to fly. Landing 2 kills is an epic journey, and I'm not even started on gunnery. Imagine you are pulling a classic stick to an angle of lets say 15 degrees to the back to get a deflection shot for a few seconds. Ont the X65F you have to apply the same exact force for that duration or your bullets will be allover the place...but with practice it can be done. One thing I've never did correctly is the neg G shot. You hold the stick firm, push and have to press the trigger at the same time or a button, plus the over nose view and/or primary fire if you want to shoot the MG's.
At the end of the day, the stick makes the game very fun and challenging. I was struggling to land a couple of sorties, my hit% got divided by 2. At some point my X65F started to put input on its own (it was my Wacom tablet doing electromagnetic interferences I think, it ended when the tablet got disconnected), so I used A 50€ T-16000 as an interim, and suprise at the second sortie I landed 7 kills without even trying! So Now the X65F is under the desk, I may come back up when I'll be in the mood for realism and fun. But for now I want to be efficient so I'm using a T16000 (still amazed by this hall effect entry level stick), with X65 throttle, and saitek pro pedals.
I just wrote what came to my head, if you have additional questions I'll be pleased to answer.
