Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X Review – Older But Still Awesome!

Performance

The stick has a really good size to it, but given Thrustmaster has a strong history of making flight sticks, they’ve obviously learnt a few things about the ergonomics too. The whole thing is designed for right-handed use though, with the throttle on your left, so keep that in mind.

While it may not come with rudders, you can twist the stick. It’s got a really nice sprung action to it too, allowing for smooth adjustments. Ignore the wrist bands, my hands were freaking killing me last week when I took these pictures.

The adjustable resistance on the stick is great too, I actually quite like it on full and minimum, both have their benefits, so I just left it in the middle because I couldn’t choose.

The throttle portion doesn’t have a resistance really, meaning you can slam it from full forward to full reverse pretty damn quick.

This may not be something good for say, flight sims, but for Elite Dangerous and battle manoeuvres in Squadrons, it’s absolutely perfect.

It’s a busy controller, and if I’m honest, it’s also my first HOTAS controller. However, I was surprised at how natural it all feels, and it’s very intuitive. I gave it to my son to play with for a couple of days, he’s never even used a normal flight stick and again, he picked it up in no time at all.

The controls offer up more buttons than some games need, which does give you the freedom to tweak the setup. Some quick changes to the camera cycle, a push to talk for Discord, or a new weapon button are easily done in most games settings menu or via the controllers remap button.

The hat switch is great for those quick look around aspect, however, I’ve had some success with SmoothTrack app on my phone for looking around while gaming.

The adjustable resistance, the great ergonomics, and the mechanical trigger all go a long way. It’s a very satisfying experience to lock and shoot down your enemies. Even better when it’s in multiplayer.

Now, if you don’t mind, I have to try land this damn plane.

How Much Does it Cost?

Amazingly, this entire setup costs just £74.99, and that’s amazing value for such a feature-packed controller. Sure, it’s not the most advanced, refined or dare I say the best-looking flight stick out there. However, it does work really well and the price is hard to ignore. It may be a MUCH older model now, but if anything that’s a benefit, as it’s been well tried and tested by the gaming community, and it’s still popular today.