Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS Hotas Flight Pack

WARNING: long review
I try to pay attention to everything.

I've been using my Thrustmaster T.16000M HOTAS for some time now to fly fighter jets and helicopters, and I can say it's highly recommended.

The stick is very precise, the smallest movements are included, so shooting vehicles off the ground with your A-10 has become as easy as frying an egg.

The throttle has 3 hat switches and a thumbstick.
The thumbstick is very nice to use for slew controls, the three other hat switches are very nice to use, they are all 8-way.

There is also a rudder rocker on the throttle. This one is surprisingly precise and fun to use, making small rudder corrections easy if you don't have rudder pedals. The rudder rocker and twist-rudder are seen as two separate axes, so you can also use the rudder rocker for something else and then just use twist-rudder on the stick.

There are also 3 buttons and a two-way rocker switch on the throttle. These are conveniently located and easy to use, even with my little hands! There is also a rotary wheel on the left edge of the throttle. This counts as an analog axis and has a high precision, small adjustments of 1% to, for example, a radiator valve can be made very easily.

What is a problem is that the throttle does not always slide smoothly, then you slide the entire device forward instead of just the throttle.

Now back to the stick.

There are 12 buttons on the base of the stick. I personally find these buttons less useful because they are difficult to reach, but if you have a moment where you can let go of the throttle or stick, these buttons can easily be used for landing gear, or flaps, for example.

As mentioned, the stick itself is very precise, but it can perhaps be experienced as "stiff". The stick needs more force to be moved, but once you get used to this I do feel that this leads to better control over the plane. Even for flying helicopters, this stick is really insane.

On the front of the stick are three buttons and an 8-way hat switch. I personally use the hat switch for trim, but it can be used for anything. The hat switch is very precise and feels good.

The buttons on the front, which are unfortunately a bit difficult to reach if you have small hands.

There is a single trigger on the back of the stick. This is a single-stage trigger, with a very nice *click*.

There is a small slider on the front of the base. I use this slider to set the speed of the propellers. Like all analog axes on the stick, this slider is very precise and can be used for anything and everything.

All in all, a great stick for this low price. Definitely recommend! You only really get a good impression of how great this stick is once you have played with it yourself, flying has never been so easy!

Some additional information:
- The stick and throttle both have their own USB cable, so you need two free USB ports to use them.

- In-game throttle and stick appear as two separate devices. This can lead to confusion when setting the buttons.

- The stick is not supported in Battlefield 4, and many other games that do not support multiple controllers. It is well supported in almost every flight simulator I have tried. (Including DCS: World, IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Prepar3d v3 and X-Plane 10)

- When you move the stick, the orange border along the center of the stick glows. This function can be disabled in the stick software.

- To use the thumbstick as a hat-switch, additional software is required, such as Xpadder.

After discovering the world of flight sims with FSX: Steam Edition, I needed a little more "hands-on" than a playstation controller. Several reviews praise the Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS HOTAS for its excellent price/quality ratio and its precise magnetic sensor. After 2 years of casual use (in FSX: Steam Edition, later Xplane 11 and Elite Dangerous) a number of defects have come to light.

But first the positives:
- The build quality of the joystick is excellent. Everything feels solid. Both the joystick and the throttle have sufficient grip and do not slide over the surface they are on.
- The joystick is also adaptable for left-handers: the grip can be replaced, on the bottom of the joystick there is a switch to switch between left and right-handedness.
- There are lots of different kinds of buttons, hat switches, etc.; available to assign different functions. More than enough for the average flight/space simmer in my opinion.
- A big plus (the reason to purchase this joystick) is that the joystick for the x and y axes uses a magnetic sensor. The same sensor is used in the high end Warthog A-10 joystick and is extremely accurate. The lifespan of a magnetic sensor is also much longer than that of an average potentiometer.
- The throttle has “pedals” on the back of the grip that you can use as an alternative to the rotation (z-axis) of the joystick. There is also a connection on the throttle for the Thrustmaster T-flight rudder pedals.
- In general, this joystick is really “value for the money”. A decent, (relatively) cheap, accurate joystick; a complete package! However, there are also some negative aspects…
- The Joystick is mapped automatically in many software/games (including Xplane 11, Elite Dangerous), handy for “plug and play”!

Negative points:
- The arsenal of buttons may be large, but the buttons on the base of the joystick become quite stiff after about a year of use and can then be pressed less easily (or even not anymore).
- The x and y-axis (joystick) use a magnetic sensor but z-axis (yaw) of the joystick does not. This is controlled with a regular potentiometer. Unfortunately, in my case, it broke down just before the 2-year warranty expired (continuous deviations/movements of the z-axis). But thanks to Coolblue, this was quickly resolved ;) . Still, this is an occasional problem: manufacturing error? Bad part?
- The movement of the throttle itself also becomes a bit stiffer, but that can be solved with some lubricant…
- If the joystick is adjusted to left-handedness, the throttle is no longer in the hand. This cannot be modified/converted.

“Neutral Points”:
- Whether the appearance is appreciated, depends entirely on one's own taste. Yet there is a good balance of quality and "playfulness".

All in all, this joystick/throttle combo is still a good deal, especially for the novice flightsimmer who doesn't want to spend too much but still wants a complete package. An equally accurate joystick can only be found in much higher price ranges (+/- €400). Nevertheless, it remains to watch out for certain technical defects (of course it can also be bad luck).