Saturday, May 12, 2007

Seiko X52 Flight Control System

After a couple years of fighting off the urge to splurge on HOTAS, I impulsivelly got a Seiko X52. First impressions? Well, it's rather overwhelming. There are so many buttons, so many modes, and so on, that at first I just started pushing buttons and seeing how it feels. I'm a Falcon 4.0AF flyer, and the first thing I noticed was that the landings are a piece of cake with the x52. I have a Wingman 2 and a Freedom 2.4 (wireless) and I love the feel of the wireless stick (it's size and shape), but I don't like it's spring being so tight that it snaps back so hard. I know a lot of people hate the soft feel of the x52, but I presonally like it. Just adjust the deadzones so it's more responsive and you're much closer to the real deal that the tight-spring stick. Obviously the real stick doesn't snap back like that. The problem I always had with other sticks and the keyboard was the trottle. It's hard to properly adjust the power and keep readjusting when you don't have a real throttle.
The real pain in the ass is setting it up. With so many programable functions, it takes hours to get it set up so you can be comfortible using it. And after every flight, I end up making modifications because something I needed was not where I wanted it and so on.
Anyway, I got the Gunslingers profile and will make modifications to it to suit my needs and then watch out.