The Good: Solid build for the price, transforms game play.
The Bad: No custom driver for Xbox and support a bit iffy in Elite
The Ugly: Jitter and lack of throttle friction adjust
Why review it now? When I bought mine I couldn’t find much about the T.Flight posted by long term users of Elite. Up till now I have been using the Xbox controller, and I ran out of buttons big time when the 3.3 upgrade dropped.
What’s the big deal? Although the standard controller is great, some find flying by thumb less than completely intuitive—if that describes you, this HOTAS is worth considering. I found the SRV was (almost) a pleasure using the T.Flight, having struggled to enjoy it using the Xbox controller. Another huge advantage is that the T.Flight brings several extra buttons to the party, and while more would have been even better, there are enough to play the current version of the game with ease.
What do you get? A flight stick and a throttle, which can be locked into one unit, or used separately, connected by a wire. The USB connection for the pair is too short for using with most TVs unless you enjoy leaving a smudge with the end of your nose on the screen, but the T.Flight works fine with a 2m USB extender cable. A switch on the front of the unit allows you to connect it to a PC or an Xbox.
Build quality? Good for the price, but there are one or two caveats. The stick has a friction adjustment at the base, but the throttle does not, and the throttle (on my unit, anyway) has so little natural friction that if left in one position even a slight knock can cause it to fall forward. The stick is great for combat and has twist yaw, which is even better, but lack of any detents or any meaningful friction on the throttle leaves you guessing where the sweet spot is in combat and takes away many of its advantages. The downside is that neither the stick nor the throttle has a big enough null zone, so tiny movements of either can be problematic in causing annoying roll in stations, for example. The stick and throttle would be improved out of sight by having a decent null zone so that it was possible to kill yaw or roll just by tapping the stick back into the self-centre zone. This and the lack of friction on the throttle axis are the most annoying features of what is otherwise and excellent product, but I can (just about) live with them given the advantages.
Utility? The buttons on the throttle and joystick could hardly be better placed, and two of the additional buttons on the throttle are perfectly positioned for controlling vertical thrust. The joystick has two extra buttons, one of which falls naturally into place for target selection, and another for swapping fire groups, while the hat control is perfect for navigating panels, and headlock when activated by another key. There are three extra buttons on the base, one of which I assigned to the gear (stops those oh my gawd, how did I do that accidental boost in the station moments, which are so messy in an engineered mamba), while the other two went to flight assist toggling and headlock.
Xbox and Elite game support? There is no native Xbox driver, so it appears—tell me if I am wrong, somebody—that if a game doesn’t support the T.Flight, then you can’t use it. Elite does support the T.Flight and it comes with a preloaded button set up that you can customise, but… when I first connected the T.Flight, Elite didn’t recognise the throttle or the stick axes. Yes! You guessed, it, several minutes later I woke up in the detention centre. Nice one, Elite, eh? Fortunately I am an old fox and had loaded a vanilla Sidey, but was my face red etc. After beating myself with birch twigs and all, I spent ages trying to find out what the problem was, until I loaded training mode in desperation and voila! Suddenly the game spotted the T.Flight and calibrated it. OK, we know that Elite is supposed to be a game of discovery, but hiding the HOTAS calibration there was a masterstroke, guys, I would never have thought of it in a zillion years. I ditched the return label to Amazon (yes, I had got that far) and the T.Flight has played nice ever since.
Improvements? Friction nut on the throttle is urgently needed, and detents would be a nice upgrade as well on version 2. A bigger null zone on both units would be excellent, because even with both apparently in neutral, there is enough jitter to make Elite believe that the throttle is not in neutral at times, for example. I do not know if Frontier could build in their own null zone utility into the game setup, but since Elite supports the T.Flight, if it were possible to do so, it would solve a lot of problems.
Summary – a relatively cheap way of living comfortably with 3.3. If you drive the SRV on planets, almost a compulsory purchase, and if combat is your pleasure, then what are you waiting for?
The Bad: No custom driver for Xbox and support a bit iffy in Elite
The Ugly: Jitter and lack of throttle friction adjust
Why review it now? When I bought mine I couldn’t find much about the T.Flight posted by long term users of Elite. Up till now I have been using the Xbox controller, and I ran out of buttons big time when the 3.3 upgrade dropped.
What’s the big deal? Although the standard controller is great, some find flying by thumb less than completely intuitive—if that describes you, this HOTAS is worth considering. I found the SRV was (almost) a pleasure using the T.Flight, having struggled to enjoy it using the Xbox controller. Another huge advantage is that the T.Flight brings several extra buttons to the party, and while more would have been even better, there are enough to play the current version of the game with ease.
What do you get? A flight stick and a throttle, which can be locked into one unit, or used separately, connected by a wire. The USB connection for the pair is too short for using with most TVs unless you enjoy leaving a smudge with the end of your nose on the screen, but the T.Flight works fine with a 2m USB extender cable. A switch on the front of the unit allows you to connect it to a PC or an Xbox.
Build quality? Good for the price, but there are one or two caveats. The stick has a friction adjustment at the base, but the throttle does not, and the throttle (on my unit, anyway) has so little natural friction that if left in one position even a slight knock can cause it to fall forward. The stick is great for combat and has twist yaw, which is even better, but lack of any detents or any meaningful friction on the throttle leaves you guessing where the sweet spot is in combat and takes away many of its advantages. The downside is that neither the stick nor the throttle has a big enough null zone, so tiny movements of either can be problematic in causing annoying roll in stations, for example. The stick and throttle would be improved out of sight by having a decent null zone so that it was possible to kill yaw or roll just by tapping the stick back into the self-centre zone. This and the lack of friction on the throttle axis are the most annoying features of what is otherwise and excellent product, but I can (just about) live with them given the advantages.
Utility? The buttons on the throttle and joystick could hardly be better placed, and two of the additional buttons on the throttle are perfectly positioned for controlling vertical thrust. The joystick has two extra buttons, one of which falls naturally into place for target selection, and another for swapping fire groups, while the hat control is perfect for navigating panels, and headlock when activated by another key. There are three extra buttons on the base, one of which I assigned to the gear (stops those oh my gawd, how did I do that accidental boost in the station moments, which are so messy in an engineered mamba), while the other two went to flight assist toggling and headlock.
Xbox and Elite game support? There is no native Xbox driver, so it appears—tell me if I am wrong, somebody—that if a game doesn’t support the T.Flight, then you can’t use it. Elite does support the T.Flight and it comes with a preloaded button set up that you can customise, but… when I first connected the T.Flight, Elite didn’t recognise the throttle or the stick axes. Yes! You guessed, it, several minutes later I woke up in the detention centre. Nice one, Elite, eh? Fortunately I am an old fox and had loaded a vanilla Sidey, but was my face red etc. After beating myself with birch twigs and all, I spent ages trying to find out what the problem was, until I loaded training mode in desperation and voila! Suddenly the game spotted the T.Flight and calibrated it. OK, we know that Elite is supposed to be a game of discovery, but hiding the HOTAS calibration there was a masterstroke, guys, I would never have thought of it in a zillion years. I ditched the return label to Amazon (yes, I had got that far) and the T.Flight has played nice ever since.
Improvements? Friction nut on the throttle is urgently needed, and detents would be a nice upgrade as well on version 2. A bigger null zone on both units would be excellent, because even with both apparently in neutral, there is enough jitter to make Elite believe that the throttle is not in neutral at times, for example. I do not know if Frontier could build in their own null zone utility into the game setup, but since Elite supports the T.Flight, if it were possible to do so, it would solve a lot of problems.
Summary – a relatively cheap way of living comfortably with 3.3. If you drive the SRV on planets, almost a compulsory purchase, and if combat is your pleasure, then what are you waiting for?
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