I’ve been a flight simulator fan for as long as I’ve owned a computer. While they’re somewhat entertaining when controlled by a gamepad or a keyboard/mouse combo, nothing beats sitting in front of a good flight sim with a quality joystick. Over the years, the availability (or lack thereof) of flight sticks on home consoles has unfortunately been very slim. Many of those that have been released were cheap or simply did not work. Now, after years of hoping and waiting, I can finally enjoy playing a few great flight simulator games comfortably on my couch with the new…

Aviator Flight Stick from Saitek/MadCatz

I was extremely excited when I first learned about the Aviator flight stick in January. Two and a half months later, I finally got my hands on one… which wasn’t easy. The joystick is made by a company called Saitek, with MadCatz handling the United States distribution. While MadCatz lists a number of big -name retailers on its Web site as locations in which to buy their products, the only one that seems to actually sell it is GameStop. Unfortunately, it has been almost completely sold out since its release. It took me a couple of weeks of watching the GameStop web site to finally get it. So do yourself a favor: just order it online and save yourself the hassle of trying to find it locally. Anyway, onto the review…

I purchased the XBox 360 version of the Aviator flight stick, which evidently also works with a PC (there is also a Playstation 3 version). The box specifically lists four XBox 360 games that the stick is compatible with: Blazing Angels, Blazing Angels 2, Ace Combat 6, and the new Tom Clancy’s HAWX. The Blazing Angels games are more arcade-style flying than pseudo-realism, so I’m not too excited about them. However, Ace Combat 6 and HAWX are both fantastic games and perfect for testing the flight stick.

The Good

The Aviator is solid. It has enough weight to handle being yanked left, right, forward, and back. I have used too many flight sticks in the past that would not stay put, which is not terribly useful when trying to dodge missiles mid-air.

The joystick itself has enough resistance to allow for accurate control of the virtual aircraft. No standard XBox 360 gamepad can provide the same amount of subtle maneuvering. Not only can you pitch and roll by moving the joystick forward, back, left, and right, but twisting the entire stick clockwise and counterclockwise enables pilot gamers to control the yaw of their planes, perfect for gunning down tanks along the horizon.

The trigger has the perfect amount of spring without too much resistance, allowing for individual shots, quick bursts, or prolonged blasts.

The throttle takes the palce of the left and right triggers on the XBox 360 controller and doesn’t easily flop around. It takes some force to move it back and forth, enabling careful selection of airspeed.

The Bad

The number one oversight with the Aviator is the length of the cable that connects it to the XBox 360. It was around 3-4 feet too short to reach from my entertainment center to my couch. Fortunately, I had a 6′ USB extension cord (actually, I had to disconnect it from my printer), but the original cable really should be longer.

The majority of the buttons are located along the front face of the base of the flight stick. It is nearly impossible to find the right button while in a dogfight. Fortunately, most of those buttons are not needed during flight, with the exception of enlarging/shrinking the map.

While the throttle itself is great, its placement could use some work. More expensive flight sticks often come with a throttle separate from the joystick. In this case, the throttle is placed behind the joystick, which forces somewhat awkward hand positioning.

The “hand rest” that comes with the joystick is not terribly comfortable, mostly because it’s nothing more than a couple of pieces of plastic that you have to screw together upon unboxing the flight stick.

It seems like the Aviator’s designers thought it would be fun to add a flip cover over the X button to add to the realism. In real life (or at least in movies), these flip covers exist to prevent pilots from accidentally launching missiles. Unfortunately, in both Ace Combat 6 and HAWX, the X button does not fire any missiles, but rather switches between types of missiles, essentially rendering the flip cover meaningless. Oh well.

The Ugly

My Aviator flight stick’s trigger broke only the second time I used it. Yeah, I was upset. I was in the middle of blasting some tanks in Ace Combat 6 and suddenly the machine gun stopped firing. At first, I assumed it had run out of bullets or jammed… but then I realized that neither of those things happen in the game. Then I heard a rattling noise when moving the joystick around and knew something was wrong.

So I busted out a screwdriver and four screws later my brand-new joystick was in multiple pieces and I was staring at the circuitry inside. I quickly noticed that the trigger mechanism was nothing more than a small spring which was supposed to press against a small metal tab that would, in turn, press against a tiny blue button. The problem was that the metal tab had come loose and was clanging around inside the joystick. I snapped the metal tab back into place, put it all back together again, and all is well again. I hope that it doesn’t come loose again.

Overall

I love the Aviator flight stick. It’s designed to work with Tom Clancy’s HAWX and definitely feels very natural controlling that game, but also flies very well with Ace Combat 6. If you’re a flight simulator fan and have never experienced air combat on an HDTV from the comfort of your couch, you need to pick up an Aviator, download the HAWX demo currently available on the XBox Live Marketplace, and see for yourself.