I am thinking to purchase these to help me with flying the F15, A10, Blackshark and other DCS aircraft.
I always felt that learing one, played a while, came back a few months later and forgot wher my key bindings where and always difficult to hit the button with the mouse while flying.
I am hoping that this will help to quckly choose my setup enroute with ordance, radar and bombing.
If you use it, does it help. Are they difficualt to program,
Does the image display on the MFD itself and you press a button or does it still show on the PC Screen only and the buttons emmulate the buttons on the screen (no image in the Thrustmaster MFD).
I use the CH stick, rudder and peddals,does that matter?
The TM MFDs don’t have monitors so your button presses only show up in the sim. There are sim pilots who mount them over small monitors though, and use them as the real deal. But even without the monitors, I like them so much, I use 3 plus the Buddy Fox A-10C UFC.
I use them now and find them great to have. Piece of cake to program, but as has been said, there is no display in them out of the box. Personally, I think placement of them is kinda important because you wouldn’t want to be looking down at them and not being able to see what the button press might be doing on your monitor at the same time.
I got them for the A-10C and now use them for just about every fixed wing aircraft (I have the Ka-50 but haven’t programed the MFDs for it yet as I am still befuddled just trying to fly from WP1 to WP2) - the Viggen (no @Troll, I do not have Eject mapped), even the Mig-21.
A couple of things to consider, to get the most out of them.
The A-10C is fairy strait forward - two MFDs in the cockpit = two physical MFDs. That said, the FSKs switch around as you switch screens. @Kinger is correct in saying that placement is important. Ideally, you should be looking at your screen while pressing the buttons. I place the two Cougar MFDs about where they would be in the cockpit - Right and Left with a separation between the two. Then it is just a quick downward glance (moving your eyes only) to see that you are pressing the right button. After a while it becomes second nature and it feels like you are really pressing the buttons on the screen.
The FA-18 has 3 MFDs so I’ve mapped the right hand Cougar to be the bottom MFD with the use of an additional Keyboard entry as a “Modifer” - I think I use the Shift Key…(I’d tell you but it appears that my FA-18 sim profile has been erased …deep breaths.
For jets without a MFD, it is actually a bit easier to use since there are n changing screens. I use both Cougar MFDs for bottoms/switches on the L and R cockpit panels. For example, in the Viggen, all the CK37 controls, Data panel and Navigation (B1, B2, etc.) are all on the right MFD in a logical sequence. The Radio buttons and a couple of the functions on the Left panel are mapped to the Left MFD, again, in a logical manner per the cockpit. So my left, top MFD button is the radio H button, the next to the right is the radios’s 1 button, etc.
…deep breaths.