Saitek are the best ‘budget’ sticks around now. I remember when you could walk into PC World and have an 10m entire shelf full of sticks. Seems like only a few are manufactured now 😡

If you want a budget HOTAS then go for the X45, or wait for the X52 out later this year. If you don’t have space for stick and throttle the next best IMHO is the Evo, again by Saitek

Hi all
A couple of Pics i think you’ll like. Taken by Jodie fox of BBMF in her first
flight in the Lanc,shot with a digital compact.
Phil.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That first image is amazing!

That looks pretty good, thanks for the link Stieglitz

Who says the mini-jets have to take a pilot with them? if we are talking future here, who’s to say that we won’t have some sort of war games scenario. All the pilots are holed up underground somewhere and control the aircraft by remote means.

Without a 13 stone pilot and flight suit etc you could extend the range by a few ks, or certainly carry a few more rounds…

No modern stick should plug into the 15pin gaming port, they should all be USB, if not then its an old bit of kit most likely.

What do other people use round here? You can spend a lot of cash on some serious kit such as the cougar (drool). I’ve got a Microsoft Sidewinder 2 FF, had it about 18 months now, and still is probably better than most sticks you can buy now, and it has FF 😮

Nice work Chris!

I’ll take it for a spin at the weekend. Thanks

BF helicopters I use my Microsoft Sidewinder, the usual clyclic control and rudder on the twist grip of the stick. I keep the throttle on the keyboard, which means my fingers are near the e key 😀

Then the only thing I can say is to practise likes theres no tomorrow, I am no where near as good as some of the guys out there but I’m not bad, which is a load better than I was when I first had a go in the choppers. All I used to be able to do was to flip the things right over as soon as I touched the throttle. Use slow but sure movements, and always counteract the rudder movement when you want to straigten up on your target, never let the AOA get too high as its difficult to recover. I’ll try and find a FAQ on this subject I’m sure I’ve seen one.

What annoys me with BF is all the smacktards that hang round aircraft spwan points! There we are getting absolultly trounced and half of our force are running round those points like headless chickens. If an aircraft spawns and they don;t get it, they shoot it so when someone else manages to get in its already duffed up. And if they do manage to sneak in one, more often than not they manage to nose dive it into the ground 4 yards down the runway. I hate them 😡

Rant over

There was recently an article in Custom PC about RAM and it was interesting reading. You would be amazed at how much some of the so called high speed RAM will set you back. Custom PC reviewed several sticks, and do you know which one came out best? One of the budget sets!!! The fast RAM was better in some instances performing certain tasks, but overall, expecially when you look at price the budget (crucial) RAM came out on top most of the time!

But it is certainly something that will improve your PC performance for minimal outlay. Also make sure you’re not running any unnecessary processes, and make sure your hard-drive is well maintained, ie de-fragged regularly, its amazing the difference it can make esp on load up times!

512 is definitly the minimum in this day and age though, I’m running on that amount but want to increase to 1GB, I’ve also got to get a soundcard as my soundstorm chip is eating valuable RAM.