The term HOTAS stands for
"Hands on throttle and stick". The idea being that the pilot
should rarely need to remove his hands from the throttle and stick in
order to control his aircraft or it's systems. In a dogfight a good hotas
is absolutely essential. The control over your speed that a throttle
controller gives you is invaluable. The ability to operate your radar,
select weapons, brakes, countermeasures etc without looking away from
the hud, or taking your hands off the controls can be the difference
between life or death in a combat situation.
The full hotas consists
of the F22 pro, TQS and Elite rudders. Lets look at what you get with
these babies. The F22 has 4 4 way hats, a dual stage trigger and 4 buttons
one of which can be used as a shift switch giving the other buttons and
hats a dual purpose. The TQS has an arced analogue throttle movement
plus 2 rotaries, a 4 way radio switch, a 4 way mouse control (which can
either act as a surrogate mouse or as a 4 way hat). A 2 position switch,
2 buttons and a 3 way rocker switch. Then finally the rudder pedals which
purely act as the rudders (although you could assign a different function
to them if you really needed to).
So how much control does that give us? Well with a basic config you have
22 possible controls on the stick and 19 on the throttle giving us 41
possible commands. This should be adequate for a lot of sims but Falcon
4 will gobble those up in no time. If we use the shift key on the stick
we can now increase that by quite a bit, we can't double it as the rotataries
on the TQS can't be shifted also we lose the button on the F22 that is
being used as the shift key. What we end up with is 42 functions on the
stick and 34 on the TQS, a total of 77 functions. Still not enough? Not
a problem as we can use the 3 way dogfight rocker as a mode switch allowing
us to practically triple that figure. After accounting for the rotaries
and the fact that the dogfight switch will no longer have any functions
(except selecting the mode) we end up with 126 possible functions on
the stick and 76 possible on the TQS giving us 202 possible functions
plus a rudder. This should be more than enough for any sim.
The flexibility of the programming is awesome. You can set some buttons
as shiftable and others as not, make some affected by the mode switch
and leave others with a single function. You can set up timings and macro's
and also toggles. You can also set keys to send a different command when
released. For instance in your falcon 4 config you could set the first
stage of your dual stage trigger up so that it does shift T followed
by "Prepare to die sucker". The second stage fires your guns then on
releasing it could send shift T followed by "Did that hurt?". You could
set the first stage up as a toggle of up to 99 different insults or quips
so that each time you fired your guns at your opponent you would fire
off a different witty remark. You could even add acmi to the macro so
that you could record the kill for posterity. Now that's what I call
flexibility!! Hmm in fact I may just set up a macro just like the one
I just mentioned as I have been accused of being a bit of an Iceman in
a dogfight, preferring to get down to the business of killing and thus
remaining silent through the whole fight. This way I get to seem chatty
without affecting my performance :)
This flexibility comes at a price though. The F22 and TQS hotas is not
exactly user friendly when it comes to programming. It uses a scripting
language and the software is all dos based. The scripting language itself
is fairly straight forward and easy to learn once you sit down and study
the manual (or the easy way, take someone elses config and study that).
The problem is that with the vast flexibility the text based config can
be difficult to keep track of. Fortunately there are 3rd party programs
such as James Hallows's excellent Fox
Two which make the whole process far less painful.
The construction of the F22 is awesome, it is a replica of the real F16
FLCS which really adds to the package. It looks and feels like the stick
you would expect to find in the real plane (which is not surprising as
we already know it's a replica :-). It really feels like the piece of
finely tuned machinery that it is. It has a good solid tension, you need
a strong arm to wield one of these babies. This tension does serve a
purpose as gives you far more control, gone are the days of struggling
to line up with a bandit turning too far one way then too far back. With
this stick you can achieve very precise turns which can be the difference
between winning and losing a dogfight
The TQS is also a replica of the throttle found in a real F16. This is
great as a lot of time and money was spent by the military to get the
ergonomics just right. Thrustmaster have taken advantage of that to bring
us a throttle that has all the buttons and rotaries in easy reach and
that feels right. The construction of the TQS isn't up to the same solid
standard as the F22 and as a result it feels a bit more plastic than
the stick. It has idle and afterburner detents and a tension adjuster
so once it is in your hand and you are flying, it just feels like a high
quality piece of kit.
The rudder pedals have no bells or whistles they are just that, a functional
set of analogue rudders. At 16" wide they have a fairly small footprint
and should fit nicely under the average desk. They use a pivot action
like a real aircraft rudder. I have found them absolutely flawless in
operation (and essential in combat :). They can be used as a digital
rudder if need be (provided you have the TQS). Personally I would have
liked them to have a Toe brake like the old RCS Pro pedals but this is
a minor flaw. In the end they do "exactly what it say's on the box".
In conclusion I would have to say that when available this was the best
hotas that money could buy (and this was certainly reflected in the price).
The combination of the quality of construction, the flexibility allowed
by the programability, and the very fact that it is a replica of the
real F16 hotas combine to make this the hotas of choice for the hard
core simmer. If Thrustmaster / Guillemot can follow up with a similar
piece of kit that is USB and digital, has the same flexibility within
a user friendly programming interface, then they will have an instant
winner on their hands.
random irc quote: <Paul1212> My reality was worse than yours. No one ever tried to kick my ass. No one ever offered me drugs. I didn't exist, I guess.. 8-(
