I feel the Cougar throttle pain too. My solution was to replace it with a Virpil, and I can't say enough about the new throttle. My complaint about the Cougar throttle was always the stiction, and nothing I did ever seemed to take care of it - mods, grease, nothing. Over the years, I wound up damaging the pushbutton rotary - the knob was so firmly attached that it pulled the post out of the pot it was attached to. It still worked - rotary turned, push button...er...pushed, but it would fall out just enough to be annoying. So eventually I replaced the whole thing.

That was the second piece of new HOTAS I've picked up over the last year - I replaced my rudder pedals last year - 20 year old CH pedals with spiky pots - with an MFG Crosswind set. I never realized how nice toe brakes were, and it is so much more comfortable to use re: pedal postion that the CH ones.

I'd been debating whether or not to replace the stick. I do like my Cougar stick - it has the NXT gimbal mod and hall sensors (I put Halls in the throttle too) but I finally pulled the trigger a few weeks ago on a new VKB Gunfighter with the MCG Pro grip. Much different feel, but I am getting used to it. The Cougar was a little sloppier (springs probably need to be replaced, they are original!) but the VKB centers quite nicely. I really like the additional buttons as well as the push down on button on all the hats. It does seem a bit more....precise?...than the Cougar, esp in DCS.

I like your solution to the throttle in Elite, DB, it's a logical choice, but for me there's something in the tactile feel of grabbing that handful of throttle and slamming it to the wall!


Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.”
-Robert Heinlein