Adding another 8-way hat to your FighterStick

[HomeBoy]

As most of you know, there are lots of ideas about dealing with the rather tall handle on the FighterStick which makes reaching the POV difficult.  This has generated all sorts of ideas about shortening the stick, physically moving the POV, etc.  I get email fairly regularly about stuff like this so I decided to set up a fairly simple way to deal with the problem.

Hope you find it useful:

http://snomhf.exofire.net/8-WayHat.html

[Hajo]

Great Post Homeboy.  As usual nice work!

[flatiron1]

I kinda find that top switch awkward also.what I did was set the castle for rear, left, right and forward up and use the 8 way for all the other views I use.

[drdeathx]

99% of us would definitely mess that one up! LOL

[bmwgs]

I had a problem with the upper hat switch after I bought the CH figherstick.  It was the only thing I didn't like about the stick.  I thought about trying to switch the hats, but that I felt was way beyond my capabilities.  If Homboy every saw me use a Dremmel Tool, then he would know that as good as his fix is, I would just throw away a C note.

My fix was simple.  After giving it some thought, and since I use the stick F16 style (on the side), I decided to just lower the table the stick is on.  I used a small box for an elbow rest, and now it works perfect.  I can easily reach the upper hat switch, as another benefit my arm doesn't get near as tired.

I would rather have the hat switches reversed though.

Fred

[HomeBoy]

I wish there was an easier way to do this.  Most of the questions I get when guys email me is they hope you could simply switch the two hats.  The problem is (you can tell by looking at the photos) the hats are soldered onto a circuit board that includes all those buttons in the top portion of the stick and you cannot  simply move them.  The best you can do is make that 4-way an 8-way as I describe.  You could actually trim that hole out with an Xacto knife rather than use a Dremmel but  it would take a lot longer.  It's still probably more than most guys would want to take on I guess.  I do wish CH would rework that stick to deal with this issue but that is most unlikely.

Thanks Hajo for the kind words.  I'm just trying to be helpful.

-hb

[Hajo]

I have no problems with my CH Products with size.

I use the Ch 586 Combat stick.  As a matter of fact I've used the combatstick since Ch intoduced it.

If you are using the full HOTAS don't spend the money for the fighterstick.  You don't need to.

In combination with the throttle and the Combat Stick the extra hat on the Fighterstick is not needed.

Will save you a few dollars knowing this.

With my setup (Combat Stick, Pedals, and Throttle) I use the keyboard to type only.

What is nice is combining the Throttle with the fighterstick for up views.

For instance the 8way on the stick used inconjunction with the top 4way on the throttle gives me an up view 360

around the aircraft.  I set the top fourway on the Throttle (Thumb Castle) when I push up on it it gives me the UP

or KP5 view when using control manager.  Then just move the 8-way on the combatstick in the direction you wish to look

up.  Works very well.....who needs trackir??