The manuverabilty "Blue Zone"

[Karla]

This is why I really love my Thrustermaster T Flight Hotas X. There's a solid click in the exact middle to make it really easy to hit that center blue zone spot.

Oh yes I made a lot of use for that, mainly for exploring though when in supercruise and I started to get close to a planet. I've had to disable that slider though because it interferes with having the hat on my second joystick which I also use as a throttle control in combat.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Nothing to laugh about, actually. I've still yours and a sidewinder ff2, both working flawlessly despite their ancient age. Something that should bring tears into the company leaders of Saitek and Thrustmaster. Also the only decent units sold by microsoft for a long time (meanwhile they caught up though, Win 10 is really not that shabby). It's a shame they dropped the production and support of these fine joysticks. I'd surely would buy a Hotas from microsoft if they'd ever decide to produce one...

I'd recommend one second hand from ebay. The ergonomics of the handle is really comfortable. The control I have over my ship is phenomenal - I can roll, yaw and pitch at the same time to keep it pixel precise, quite literally. There's a tiny little bit of play on it but it's 2 decades old? My X45 lasted maybe 2 years and was a massive pos in terms of production quality. Microsoft excelled themselves with these JS's imo and I've never had a better one. It's a pity it was never a HOTAS but if it was and it was this good, it would be my choice.