I think everyone knows about race-car simulators, and all the cool steering wheels and pedals you can get to bring your driving experience to life, but alongside that is a whole other world of Simulators from Farming to Flying and if there’s one thing I can tell you a bit about it’s flight simulators because between my son Harri and I – he’s 14 – it’s a passion in our home!
Across the world the leading Flight Simulator, Microsoft Flight Simulator, has over 20 million players, 500,000 of them here in Australia – it’s a huge market.
And what those players are looking for to enhance their gaming experience is flight controls. What we’re talking about there are the things pilots use to control their planes, it’s not the wheel – it’s a yoke, some planes use a joystick, some have side controls for flaps and thrust and then there’s the pedals, or rudders. That’s the tip of the iceberg too.
In our home we have a whole flight seat setup from Aussie sim company Next Level Racing – but that seat is no good without some controls attached.
Recently, we’ve been testing a pretty advanced bit of kit – the Turtle Beach Velocity One Flight Deck. At a glance you think joystick, but it’s so, so much more.
At $699, (Less at Kogan) it’s actually a really great price for a single bit of kit that will have you feeling like you’re really in control.
It’s the combination of the throttle control and joystick that makes it a perfect combo.
Harri says “The Turtle Beach Velocity One Flight Deck is an amazing piece of kit. It is good for any age, if you’re into space flight it’s got you, if you’re into military flight it’s got you and finally if you’re into airline flight it’s also got you. It has a whole load of customisation and a lot more but the one downside is that it is PC only.”
While Microsoft don’t release data on this, I’d hazard a guess that a huge percentage of their players are using consoles like Xbox or PlayStation, and a controller like this is made for someone using a PC for the game (sorry, it’s a simulation – but you get the gist).
The setup experience is easy enough for a 14-year-old. “When opening the box you are greeted with the throttle quadrant and the flight stick base and the actual flight stick, also it comes with 2 cables to be able to plug in to your PC. Once you plug everything in you will need to download the Turtle Beach Velocity One Flight Hangar but this will open up to a world of customization. Baked into the throttle quadrant there is a touch screen with customizable buttons which you can make do anything you want them to do.”
What I think is key is the level of customisation you have on both the Turtle Beach Velocity One Flight Deck itself, and within the game.
That means in-game you can set some functions to certain buttons, but in the companion app you can configure what you see on the screen of the device.
And it feels premium too. Harri says “The flight stick is very soft and is not too hard to move but it has some force needed to move it. The stick also has a lot of different buttons and they all have different uses. It even has a touchpad inside the fire button.”
The 14-year-old summary is “Overall it is an amazing piece of kit and it has loads of customization and endless possibilities and the only downside is that it can’t connect to consoles like Xbox or PlayStation and only works on PC.”
Trev is a Technology Commentator, Dad, Speaker and Rev Head.
He produces and hosts several popular podcasts, EFTM, Two Blokes Talking Tech, Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars, The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, and the Private Feed. He is the resident tech expert for Triple M on radio across Australia, and is the resident Tech Expert on Channel 9’s Today Show and appears regularly on 9 News, A Current Affair and Sky News Early Edition.
Father of three, he is often found in his Man Cave.
