Fighterstick USB

Flight Journal, Aug 2002 by Marks, Bob

VIRTUAL PILOT

Fighterstick USB

Developer. CH Products.

www.chproducts.com

Recommended system: Windows 98/ME; 2000 and XP (requires Direct-X 7.0a or above) for PC and MacOS 8.6 and above (requires Input Sprockets 1. 7x) for Macintosh.

Price: $149.95.

San Diego's CH Products Fighterstick USB is closely patterned after the F-16's control stick. All eight buttons and switches (three pushbuttons; one mode switch/push-button; three four-way hats and one eightway point-of-view hat) are easy to reach and manipulate. I like the considerable travel, or "throw," the CH sticks offer, though I do wish that the spring tension was tighter. The Fighterstick USB also offers three modes that are switchable when you're playing a game. All of these functions are programmed

through the excellent, very powerful Control Manager software that allows up to 128 functions on the stick alone-- mind-boggling, indeed (once you've figured out the software).

While the Control Manager software is somewhat intuitive, it still takes fair amount of poking and prodding to get the hang of it. It doesn't help that the documentation included with the stick is vague. The technical folks at CH are very helpful, however, and they succeeded in talking me down from a state of high anxiety. In my case, the software would not load from the included CD-ROM at all, though it ran fine when downloaded from the CH Products website.

As a standalone unit, the Fighterstick USB is a great piece of gear. When hooked up with its CH Products Pro Throttle USB and Pro Pedals USB stable mates (both previously reviewed quite favorably in this column), it becomes one of a trio that truly shines as one of the best group of controllers a flight-sim fanatic could ask for.

I hope this roundup of available flightsim hardware will help you to decide what best meets your latest virtual-- piloting needs. There are some great, albeit expensive, items out there, and your choice is limited only by the size of your spare-cash cache. Check your six and your bank account.