Thrustmaster TCA Sidestick Airbus Edition Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Oh boy, the launch of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 did one thing, it made EVERYTHING flight stick related sell out in a day. I’m not even sure where the stock and prices will settle, but you can expect to pay between £65-90 for the TCA Sidestick. I think you’ll be paying a premium for months until stock and demand settle again. You can check Amazon for the latest stock here though. However, since many first-timers don’t want to over-invest, the stick and the throttle bundle for £149.99 still hasn’t sold out and that’s a fantastic deal! Or the TCA Quadrant on its own for just £89.99.

It also appears that Thrustmaster will sell the stick for the MSRP of just £64.99, crazy cheap in my opinion, but they are also out of stock, yet still taking pre-orders.

Overview

There’s no shortage of gaming peripherals out there, but even today, there just aren’t that many flight sticks. There’s certainly some exciting options though, but many of them can cost a huge amount of money. Certainly too much for your typical gamer who just wants to try land a Cessna. At around £65, if you can find stock, this isn’t that much more expensive than a typical Xbox One controller, so it’s easily within the reach of your typical consumer.

More is More

Personally, I would be tempted to pay £150 for the stock and quadrant controller. I’m sure the enthusiast may even want the rudder pedals, but honestly, I personally never felt I was missing out there, as the stick its self delivered everything I really needed.

Gaming

When it comes to playing Flight Simulator 2020, it popped up that it had fully detected my new flight stick, and it configured all the controls immediately. No fuss, no extra settings, it just worked and that’s fantastic. You can use it in plenty of other games too, of course. X Plane, Elite Dangerous and even stuff like Lunar Flight work great. I actually plugged it into my arcade machine to play After Burner too.

Should I Buy One?

The build quality is fantastic, the control surfaces all work smoothly and without fault, and it’s packing more buttons than you actually need, giving you plenty of flexibility. If there’s a better stick out there for the same or less money, I haven’t heard about it. This one won’t be leaving my desk for a very long time. Highly recommended.