This is the ultimate Saitek setup. Take everything that Saitek has on offer, put it together and this is what you get. Its everything that you could want in a flight simulator cockpit. This video takes us through all of the gear.
Firstly the yoke, which is a pretty sturdy control with a metal shaft and smooth action. It also includes a number of buttons for assigning to controls and hat switches that can be programmed to switch your outside view. Another feature of the Saitek yoke is the inbuilt LCD display, that can be used for checking the time or a more useful function, timing the legs of your flight. It also has a feature that may have been overlooked, mounting points. These mounting points can be used to attach up to 6 Saitek instrument panels.
These instrument panels are LCD displays that can be used for airspeed, vertical speed, compass, altimater, artificial horizon or as a turn coordinator. You can also start with only one and build up to 6. If you have less than 6, a toggle is included to switch the display to another control. The throttle also comes with one throttle quadrant to control the throttle. The throttle quadrants can also be purchased separately and as well as the throttle, control the propellor and mix.
The pedals are the final addition to this full setup and allow control of rudder and wheel brakes. A handy feature with the pedals is a tension adjuster to make the sliding back and forth easy or more difficult, simulating a real aircraft where you are actually pulling on wires.
If you are researching flight simulator controls, you will soon realise that there are only a few major players. There is Saitek and CH that offer a complete line of flight controls and others like Logitech and Thrustmaster that focus more on the flight sticks (more commonly known as joysticks).
Saitek offer a number of flight simulator controls. Obviously the most important control in your virtual cockpit is the control column. Depending on the aircraft that you are flying this can be a flight stick or a yoke. Saitek offers both with futuristic sounding names such as the Cyborg flight stick or the more mundanely named Aviator. The flight stick is going to be the best choice if your aircraft of choice is one of the Airbus jets that has computer driven fly by wire flight or ’side’ sticks. Other aircraft that use a flight stick include military fighters, aerobatic planes and some trainers.
For the aircraft that have the common yoke in the cockpit, Saitek also offers the Pro Flight Yoke. The Saitek yoke is designed to go together with the pro flight throttle quadrant. The quadrant gives three levers that can be used to control one or more throttles, or they can be assigned to any of the other controls such as flaps, gear or spoilers.
The Saitek pro flight rudder pedals complete your home cockpit. If you have the flight stick or yoke, the throttle quadrant and the rudder pedals you just about don’t need to touch the keyboard and mouse. Flying with these controls will start to give you a very realistic experience of flying an aircraft.
If you are looking to go to the ultimate in realism, Saitek also offer a number of panels that can be added to your flight gear. Perhaps the most impressive of all the controls are the instrument panels. These panels use a LCD panel to display one of altimeter, attitude indicator, airspeed, compass, vertical speed or turn and slip.
