Desktop pilots have been thrilled to see the recent attention given to them from Mad Catz’ child company, Saitek. Saitek has an entire line of Pro Flight flight simulation gear made just for them. Recently, the company sent us over one of their Pro Flight Switch Panels, which simulates some of an aircraft’s electrical systems as well as landing gear lever.
The unit is a fairly wide Pro Flight peripheral, measuring as wide as the Pro Flight yoke controller! It is actually meant to be the first tier above the flight yoke when it is all mounted together. Installation of the Switch Panel is a cake walk – simply install the CD, plug the peripheral into a USB 2.0 port and off you go! Flight Simulator X will ask you to continue the installation when you try to run it next and all you needs do is follow the on-screen prompts to complete the install.
Featuring the same all-black plastic construction as the rest of the Pro Flight line, the Switch Panel feels well-constructed and resistant to wear. The two largest controls on the unit are the engine selector rotary knob and the landing gear lever, so we will begin by talking about those. The engine selector rotary knob features a nice tactile response with every click, making it feel like a real aircraft control in your hand. Each settings is well-defined by a detent and there was never any slippage from one setting to another during use. The landing gear lever is a great size and features a somewhat scaled-down version of a landing gear knob found in real general aviation aircraft. The fulcrum of the lever is inset within the Switch Panel and its action mimic its real-life counterparts (minus “locking”). The lever has a nice level of friction in its swing, making it feel as if you are actually handling a control lever deep within the dash. The LED gear status lights work very well within Flight Simulator X and will flash green, yellow, or red depending on the gear’s current state. This control is the crown jewel of the peripheral – as there is NOTHING worse than going through your takeoff roll and having to move your hand over to the “G” key to raise your gear. High-end landing gear controllers cost several hundreds of dollars, making this a steal for our FSX and FS2004 needs.
The rest of the Switch Panel is made up of rocker switches for electrical functions and opening/closing of the nose cowling (in prop aircraft). The rocker switches, unlike the other controls, feel a bit cheap and don’t have the same friction of action. They do feature a nice “clicking” noise when activated, but I digress.
However, the biggest drawback of the Switch Panel is that it only supports Flight Simulator X and FS2004 (especially with the dissolution of the ACES team that developed those titles). It will not be registered as a USB controller by Windows so that you can assign it to other simulations. If Saitek ever released some sort of update to the system to allow this, it would make the Switch Panel one of the most highly sought-after flight sim peripherals on the market. I am crossing my fingers!
Overall, the Saitek Pro Flight Switch Panel is an excellent addition for your Pro Flight cockpit, assuming your are flying in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X or FS2004. It retails for less than $100 dollars and is available now at the official Saitek/Mad Catz/Gameshark store.
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Pro’s
- Awesome landing gear lever
- Excellent array of electrical and light controls
- Integration with other Pro Flight controls
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Con’s
- ONLY works with FSX and FS2004
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