I have a secondhand thrustmaster warthog set and so far haven’t done any tuning or altering to enhance its reliability because it’s just fine as it is, despite being preowned and a good ten years old.
It is heavy. The metal makes it feel very special. Like a tool, or a weapon even. Not a toy. The buttons are clicky and look like they can be relatively easily replaced if they ever wear out. This thing feels like a million dollars to me.
The alterations I am looking to do to it are:
- an extension, if and when I get to build a home cockpit with a centermount. A taller stick makes for more precise small movements.
- A replacement of the target designator nub by a ps/4 stick. There’s a dude in the UK selling kits to do that.
- Regreasing the gimbal on the stick and perhaps replacing a teflon ring that may be starting to wear out.
But without those, it’s already a perfectly fine piece of kit. It’s luxurious, the thing I dreamed of since I bought my first logitech analogue stick back when I was 12.
Internally, it has the same sensors as the T1600m has, and those are fine.
For pedals I use a cheap plastic saitek set that’s a placeholder for something better. TBH I use them mostly when taxiing and on takeoff in tail sitter planes like the spitfire. It’s in the latter situation that I wish for a better set, for finer control. I suck at helicopters, and the crappy pedals might have something to do with that.