This is a question for those who have had both the Warthog and the CH products. Is the Warthog better or worse than Fighterstick, pro throttle/pedals?
I'm one of "those" I guess. It's a very tough call - like choosing between a Shelby Mustang or ZL1 Camaro, Ginger or Mary-Anne, Coke or Pepsi. This is in terms of performance.
In terms of price....
A Warthog will set you back 450$, I've seen a few guys who claim they got theirs for 400$, and they are really lucky ducks, as amazon and everywhere else right now sells them for 450$ at a minimum. I paid 500$ when it first came out. A CH setup can be had for as little as 200$ if you search around, and even average joe retailer they cost only slightly higher. As Semp would say, that's 200$ you can spend on beer.
The quality of both sets is excellent. I will say that the Warthog has a better feel in terms of the materials, and it certainly weighs a bit more and feels more "solid". There is also the point that the Warthog uses Hall sensors, not pots, and these won't wear like the pots in the CH stuff will. That said, I've had many CH sticks since the 90's, and I've never had to replace a part in any of them (knock wood).
I will say that for very precise shooting/aiming, I prefer the CH Fighter/Combat stick over the TM stick. It just seems a little more sensitive to very small inputs, and makes these small adjustments to fine aim seem easier than with the Warthog. As for the throttle, the Warthog has split throttle capability, the CH Pro Throttle doesn't. The CH does have 3 4-way hats and 1 8-way hat, where the TM only has 1 4-way and 1 8-way hat. The CH throttle has 3 push down buttons, and one of those goofy mousey stick things, which I've never used for anything like most people I'd wager. The TM throttle has 3 push buttons as well, but also has eight 3-way switches AND five 2-way switches. A lot of stuff to click and go pew pew pew with.
Also, the programming software for TM has a nightmare-ish rep, and I've never messed with it much myself, and choose to set controls up in game. I do this with the CH setup as well, and cannot comment either way on their software, as I've never even installed it.
It's hard to give advice on what way to go. If anyone is even considering the Warthog, they likely will have the 450$ kicking around to purchase it, so making a decision based just on the price difference seems pointless, at least to me. If you can get a chance to try one out, and I mean as in fly in Aces High or whatever SIM you plan on using most with it for 15 minutes or so, and see how precise it feels as far as aiming and whatnot for you, that's what I WOULD recommend doing, and then doing the same with the FighterStick. My personal choice would be the CH setup, if I was only going to fly Aces High, or at least fly it 90% of my time on the PC. If I was going to fly a lot of other stuff, like DCS A10, the Falcon series, you get the idea, I would hands down go with the TM. And of course, if money is an issue, than the decision is made easily with that in mind IMO.
As for pedals, that is an entirely different subject, as TM doesn't make any I don't think. The typical argument is Saitek vs. CH for the peds, as the SIMPEDS are really expensive and no longer manufactured. There is a recent thread about this, I have a set of CH pedals and a set of the Saitek Pro Combat Pedals, and it's an easy choice for me, as the saitek's are larger, better made, have a lot more metal construction materials as opposed to plastic in the CH, and have a more comfortable wider distance betwix'd the feet.
