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I hope anyone who is thinking of buying this finds it helpful
LOGITECH G940 Flight System – Review
Written By: Ray Xxxxxxx
August 09, 2009
Logitech has waited a long time to enter the flight simulation market. They have always had a nice selection of traditional gaming joysticks; however, most true flight simmers find these very much inadequate. The closet comparable to the G940 is the SAITEK X52 series.
The LOGITECH G940 is a 3-piece flight system
Forced Feedback Joystick
Throttle Module
Rudder Pedals
This is the only system that comes with all 3 pieces. Other manufacturers make all these pieces, but they are sold as separate items. Upon arrival, the items were well packaged and looked impressive, as we have come to expect from all LOGITECH products. The Joystick and Throttle have a nice rubbery texture to it to improve grip. Installation was very easy. The joystick is the heart of the system. It requires an external power cord that powers all 3 modules. This is a nice feature. Most other flight sim controllers require power via USB power thus taxing the power supply of the PC. The joystick connects to the PC via a standard 2.0 USB connection. The throttle and rudder pedals connect to the joystick via DB9 connections. I found these DB9 connections to be very old fashion. Why didn't LOGITECH use USB connections here? The device drivers installed without issue. I calibrated the 3 devices without issue. Button and Axis assignment was completed without issue. I should mention that I am testing the G940 with Microsoft Fight Simulation 2004 (a.k.a. FS9) as I did not want to change the button assignments in my FSX.
It should be noted at this point that the G940 is not geared towards true flight simming. These controllers are only valid if the user is flying aircraft that use a stick in the right hand and throttle in the left hand. This would include such aircraft but not limited to Piper Cub, Extra 300, P51, F-16 or an Airbus in the co-pilots position. These controllers are not suitable for any aircraft that use a yoke such as Cessna 172, DC10, Boeing 737, etc. Having said all this, technically the G940 can be used to fly any aircraft, however the realism factor drops significantly when flying yoke style aircraft.
JOYSTICK
Both the joystick and Throttle module come with 4 screw holes thus allowing the users to screw or bolt down the controllers to a table top or home made simulator. The joystick has 3 dials on the base of the joystick for pitch, roll and yaw trim. This is a very nice feature. The top of the joystick has the traditional assortment of hatswitch's and programmable buttons. The force feedback feature seemed to work fine however this is not a feature I tend to use. Other users may enjoy it. Overall the joystick performed very much like other high-end joysticks. It gets bonus marks for the 3 trim wheels. The only negative I found was the top hatswitch and top 3 buttons were difficult to access with my thumb without compromising my grip on the joystick.
THROTTLE
The throttle module is the item I like the most. It has 2 separate thrust levers that can be locked together when flying single engine aircraft. It has 2 separate trim wheels, which brings the total amount of trim wheels to 5. (I'm not sure what I would use the 4th and 5th wheel for). There are 2 buttons on the side of the throttle which can be used for engine start and stop if the user does not wish to go through the full engine start up and shut down procedure. Just above these 2 buttons is another hatswitch. The base of the module contains 8 programmable buttons. These buttons light up green and red depending on how they are being used. The feature I like most about these 8 buttons is that have clear key caps on them thus allowing the user to print labels and placing them under the keycap. LOGITECH even provides the user with pre-printed labels and blanks labels.
The thrust levers are large and bulky, thus giving the users the feeling of holding real thrust levers.
PEDALS
The pedals are also nice. The pedals themselves are metal or aluminum (I can't tell which) mounted in a hard plastic casing. The pedals are very wide however the length is not extendable like the SAITEK pedals. This is not a big deal. The pedals have very fluid movement in both the rudder and braking axes.
My only complaint is that the distance traveled in the rudder axis is not as long as in the SAITEK pedals. The SAITEK pedals allow for more precise rudder control.
CONCLUSION
The system as a whole a very nice system if you prefer a joystick rather than a yoke. The MSRP of $299.99 seems inline with other flight control systems on the market. From a LOGITECH perspective, they are only catering to about 50% of the flight sim market. The other 50% prefer a yoke based system. Until LOGITECH comes out with a Yoke based system, they will lose a lot of sales to people like SAITEK and CH PRODUCTS.
The big negative that I see with this system is the DB9 connections for the Throttle and Pedals. It doesn't allow the user to custom build their setup. I personally use the SAITEK Yoke, Throttle and Pedals and I actually prefer the G940 Throttle to the SAITEK 3 axis Throttle Quadrant. After my testing, I decided that I wanted to incorporate the G940 Throttle into my system and use the SAITEK Throttle Quadrant for other flight controls, but in order to do that, I had to maintain the G940 joystick because this is where the Throttle gets its power and USB connectivity. If the Throttle had a USB connection, perhaps I could have plugged the G940 Throttle directly into my PC. As such, the G940 joystick is now sitting on the floor under my desk collecting dust, simply acting as a go-between. Overall, I think users will enjoy this system and LOGITECH has done a nice job entering the flight sim market, however they have a lot of work to do if they wish to stay in the market.
Rating – 7/10
Edited by raybbj, 10 August 2009 - 12:47 AM.
It looks good, a bit out of my price range, and im the other 50% of flight simmers who prefer a yoke anyway 
And aluminium is a metal anyway 
Its probably either alu or steel, two very common materials 
