In order to give him his wings properly (X ones, Y ones, the variable-sweeps of a Tomcat, or otherwise), I knew an update to my HOTAS setup would be essential. It’s been a minute, folks. I joined the Rebel Alliance in ‘98 with a Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 joystick, and that was the gateway into an on-again-off-again love affair with the genre—intense summer flings with Jane’s Fighters Anthology, MS Flight Simulators, etc. Obviously, my HOTAS setup became a revolving door of better model updates, too, until I broke formation to redistribute my money into steering wheels and VR headsets instead.

Banking back to the topic of Connoisseur Gaming Inception, though, I do have a pro tip that will raise your percentage chance of success. You should always try to sidecar the new thing being introduced with something your victim has a preexisting love for, no matter how tangential it may seem. The link I went with was tenuous and mixed-media, but still potent. Having recently watched the crowd-pleasingly excellent Top Gun: Maverick on Netflix with my eldest son, I tried to target-lock him onto flight sims with the following gear…

The setup

Even if you’re not an up-to-date stick jockey, the aforementioned HOTAS Warthog probably needs very little introduction, so I’ll not spend too much time on it. Widely respected as a rock solid stalwart of the sim scene since 2010, this metal-tastic A-10C replica is bristling with 19 action buttons and an 8-way POV hat. The finer reasons on why it confidently owns pole position in our Best PC Joystick 2024 list will take up more space than I have to give (and it’s best explained by said article).

In the interest of covering new ground, I’ll focus more on the exceptional build and control possibilities of the Viper TQS Mission Pack, a 1:1 replica that looks to the untrained eye like it got parted right out of a real F-16. This was perfect for my needs because while many hours of X-winging in Squadrons planted the seed of interest nicely, phase two of inception was to bring my son back down to Earth for some Maverick-esque canyon running in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Yep, it was time to employ this Throttle Quadrant System for what it was originally designed for—real-life military aviating. And hey, I’m not ashamed to say that I hogged the above kit for a couple of runs myself, followed by some reacquainting with more hardcore fare like Falcon BMS and DCS.

During those expert-level engagements, I was mighty impressed with the build quality and authenticity of the Viper TQS. Just like the feeling of playing my racers with a Logitech Pro Wheel or my light gun games with a solenoid-fitted Sinden Light Gun, one really can’t beat the elevated experience of gaming with a dedicated peripheral that’s been lovingly designed and built for purpose.

With the specialised throttle experience provided by the Viper TQS, it’s pretty intoxicating to have this big, weighty thing that puts a huge array of control inputs and exes at your fingertips. Yes, some of the parts are plastic in a few spots, but the overwhelming bulk of it is brushed aluminium base meets a solid diecast metal throttle lever. There’s also the incredibly cool, V.A.T.S.-esque backlit panel with adjustable indicator lights on the landing gear controls and TWA info.

Better yet, the Viper’s complex outer appearance belies its simplistic connectivity and ease of use. You can hook it up easily with a USB-C to USB cable, and, though the experts among you will feel compelled to use a clamp or the provided drill holes to bond it to something permanently, I found I could use it as-is on a desk just fine.

When it comes to compatibility on a software level, the news isn’t as positive. On the plus side, you can hook this into DCS and have 95% of the inputs be accurately recognised and ready to go in an instant. On the other side of the coin: if you are coming at this with a mind to use it with the UGC F-16s in the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator, there’s a lack of native mapping, which will trigger a lengthy remap process.

I’m not going to spend all day going through the generally excellent toggles and switches on this unit, but there are some peccadilloes worth mentioning. On the mission pack base, you’re getting four solidly produced three-way toggles and three two-way ones. In terms of dials, there is a depressable coder rotary, and a four-way, five-way, and six-way rotary that feel a little too stiff to turn.

Lastly, we have a vertical axis and a lockable two-position gear handle, the latter of which could be the only potentially damageable component on this thing. I constantly feel like I have to use kid gloves around it.

While flicking levers like a 1950s telephone switchboard operator can be weirdly satisfying, what about the feel of what is arguably the main event here, the throttle? It’s wonderful and weighty to handle, plus it’s running off Hall Effect sensor magnet tech which provides superior position accurate data and is less prone to degradation without moving parts.

Speaking of friction, I dig that you can tailor the movement feel of the throttle, afterburner detent, and idle detent with a neatly hidden hex key adjuster. I would also be remiss if I didn’t give special mention to how satisfying it is to backfist the Chaff / Flare button on this unit. It feels both responsive and capable of handling the desperate abuse it’s sure to suffer during many a dogfight.

When it comes to said combat—actually turning and burning with this thing—the Warthog stick and Viper TQS combo really do go a long way to selling the aviator sim to your brain as a real-life experience. Obviously, with my young recruit I had to patiently scaffold him up to such things, from joyflights in MS Flight Sim to Squadrons to actual life and death-dealing in War Thunder. From there, and hopefully in time, he’ll seek to engage with the deeper combat sims that await him elsewhere on my SSD.

To that end, I borrow the reins and show him what’s in his future by firing up Falcon BMS for a few sorties. With a few practical lessons I explain just how deep this “study sim” is and how highly maneuverable the F-16 can be as a supersonic, multirole fighter. Needless to say, the Viper TQS performs brilliantly here as I throttle to Mach 2 and demonstrate the 9-g maneuvers for which this bad boy was purpose-built. Pretty soon, he’s right in the moment with me, cheering as I leverage our T/W ratio and energy retention in the vertical to pull repeated Immelmannesque turns, and then (applying the F16’s superior roll rate) we slide into our target’s turning circle for some sweet, sweet killshots.

End result: Mission accomplished—my son’s all in and keen to sim. And as a side bonus, the demonstration process has rekindled this old Ace’s interest, too. If you yourself have half a mind to dust off your long disused G-suit or expand your horizons for a first try of this genre, it always pays to not engage with the low-tier gear and instead get good tone on the (admittedly not inexpensive) best-in-class hardware out there.

The only downside I can see with today’s exercise is pretty soon I’ll have a wannabe wingman instead of a hands-off RIO in my house, and that’ll mean sharing this hardware. I probably should have seen that bogie on my radar beforehand. Which makes me less a Maverick in my own mind and more of a short-sighted, absolute Goose.

Adam Mathew wrote these words because he felt the need. The need…for speed. *Rowdy high-five*