Being fair, the CH stuff is made of plastic and yet it is bombproof. I’ve heard the Warthog stick has a few plastic parts prone to breakage.
I think there might be some 3rd party programs out there that can encapsulate multiple devices into a single unified device, but I haven’t looked at those for a while. It’s something I consider essential for retro gaming as a lot of the older games can only recognize one device and a handful of buttons.
The Warthog innards is all plastic. The handle is metal. My Warthog wore out, and then the articulation sphere broke.
You sir, are an edge case. But even so, nothing lasts forever. At least the hog seems repairable, something you can’t say for the majority of modern consumer electronics.
I think that TM 16k HOTAS is good bang for your bucks
If there was a modern day mid-level HOTAS kit, this would get my vote. The only part I don’t like is the stick doesn’t offer a lot of buttons, which can make it a bit constrained in games like DCS.
A lot of WH users have the sticking issue, and the design really don’t like twist loads. The ”neck” part between the connector and the handle, seems to be prone to breaking, as well. And yes, it’s easily repaired, provided you can get spare parts. My articulation sphere cost med about $30, from TM. I have seen 3D printed parts of both the sphere and the neck.
But the thing is, why have TM opted for a plastic gimbal, when much smaller companies have designed extremely precise all metal gimbals, seemingly with ease?
The metal handle is superb. The software, really good. The load bearing gimbal… Well, why design a premium product with such an achilles heel?
But TM has shown, with the release of the new Pendulum Rudderpedals, that they’re still in the high end flightsim controller business. Will be interesting to see the Hornet stick, up close. I hope they have cast a glance at the competition…
Being clever, it was probably easy to manufacture and looked like it worked well in the prototype’s!
I can appreciate the engineering in that to be honest.
Sure, but why go for a metal handle then?
To me it seems like they went all in on the parts you could see, and cheaped out on the hidden parts.
This really seems like a minefield. If the warthog doesn’t seem to like twist loads would everyone recommend getting pedals at the same time. I’ve been eyeing up a set on ebay but I’m really not sure which would improve my flying more… Obviously in real life the pedals are what I’m used to but I’ve ‘gotten used’ to the twist on the stick. While it’s certainly not perfect I can definitely get by. The stickiness of the action on my cheap stick seems to be the major issue.
The Warthog doesn’t have twist rudder. It’s just that the design of the gimbal is such that it will break quite easily, if subjected to a twist load, like overtightening the handle nut.
Glad I asked in that case! Phew!
I heard about that…something about aerosols wasn’t it? 
Because a metal handle feels good! there’s always a balance to be struck based on your BOM on what you can afford to build and make. Perhaps the budget for the mould was a bit bigger, they had better casting facilities or such.
Honestly, there’s a lot of intricate decisions to make when manufacturing peripheral devices, I can’t blame them for making this decision. The Amp Hour Podcast has a ton of interesting episodes where they talk about getting products from the drawingboard to final manufacturing and honestly, it’s not always easy and certainly not about what is the “cheapest”.
The Thrustmaster Warthog was released in 2010, already almost 9 years ago. On a product like that you’ve got a lead in time of about 3 years before you got everything set up.
And yes, people designed better Gimbals for the Cougar, but perhaps they were not feasible after a design study to manufacture within budget, ergo they went with plastic gimbal design currently used.
How many other companies managed to bring similar design specs to to the table around 2010? We had Saitek, Logitech, and Thrustmaster back then. To me it’s a little unfair to pit the warthog against a recent VPC design for example.
And this is my point! It’s a selling point that is easily made. I still remember unboxing my Cougar. It felt like a tank! It was only after a while I realized that the gimbal was the same as the F-22 Pro. The customer starts waving the credit card because of the wow factor. A plastic grip isn’t as sexy. But it makes a whole lot more sense to put the money in the gimbal and electronics, from a longer perspective.
I think the design of the F-22 Pro and the Cougar made more sense, than the Warthog.
And like I said before. It will be interesting to see what they bring to the market with the Hornet stick.
Yes but I think with the RD that went into these things you need to have an wow factor to sell it to a bigger audience. I am pretty positive the market for flight sticks is bigger these days and component costs have shrunken down. IF Thrustmaster would come up with another flawed design then I would be a bit miffed.
Pretty sure I read some stories on the design on Cougar World a few years back, can’t find them right now though.
I don’t doubt they put a lot of resources in RD. Nor do I doubt the Warthog is a product of that RD.
I just don’t agree with it.
And that is absolutely fair! I just want to highlight a different perspective here
That even Thrustmaster can be wrong, on occasion…
