Thrustmaster TCA Captain Pack X Airbus Edition – Officially
Thrustmaster TCA Captain Pack X Airbus Edition – Officially Licensed for Xbox Series X|S and PC
| Dimensions: | 31.3 x 21.8 x 28.2 cm; 2.93 Kilograms |
| Model: | 4460217 |
| Dimensions: | 31.3 x 21.8 x 28.2 cm; 2.93 Kilograms |
| Origin: | China |
Bellissimo kit e comodo da usare, ma preparatevi a passare un pomeriggio a impostare tutti i vari comandi e regolare le sensibilit etc. Una volta fatto questo perfetto e comodo.
Consiglio: attaccate direttamente le USB al PC e non usate un moltiplicatore di USB esterno, se non di buona qualit, perch altrimenti a volte “salta” il collegamento ogni tanto per qualche secondo e se siete tipo in atterraggio, decollo o simili, state certi che vi schiantate perch non avrete il controllo dell’aereo per 5-10 secondi. Collegando le USB direttamente al pc o usando un moltiplicatore attaccato alla corrente domestica, questo problema scompare
First impressions are that the flight stick is much higher quality than my previous one. Movement is much more precise and the axis are much better centred, with very little dead zone required. With the previous stick there was a small amount of play on the rudder twist axis and simply holding the grip caused a small amount of continual left rudder input that I had to consciously counteract, or set a 20% deadzone to cancel out. This didn’t happen at all with the Thrustmaster.
As the Thrustmaster is supplied with the throttle quandrant, I haven’t been using any of the buttons on the stick base, but their location on both sides of the stick might make it difficult to reach half of them with the other hand. However, putting them all on one side means the stick wouldn’t be suitable for ambidextrous use as it currently is.
The quadrant really adds a touch of realism to flight sim controls, but it’s not without a couple of design issues.
First of all, on the main thrust levers, the five detents are equally spaced along the range of movement, like 0-25-50-75-100%, but this is not the case on the real Airbus A320 thrust levers which looks to be spaced more like 0-30-70-85-100%. On the real levers, the A/THR section between the second and third detents is larger and presumably allows for finer control of the thrust. On the Thrustmaster quadrant, because this section is smaller, any adjustments are much more sensitive and it makes precise low level thrust control very difficult. The problem is compounded by FS2020 using a odd sensitivity curve on those axis to ensure that the detent positions correspond to the correct power levels. My attempts to adjust the curves just resulted in the game not detecting CL, FLX or TOGA power levels when the levers were at those detents. Because of this, trying to spin up the engines very slightly to start taxiing is quite difficult and usually results in going far too fast along the taxiway.
A second issue is that the Auto Brake control bears little resemblance to the real A320 control. On this product, it is a rotary knob with six positions: DISARM, BTV, LO, 2, 3, HI, but the A320 just uses three push buttons: LO, MED, MAX. The five knob positions BTV to Hi correspond to controller buttons 22-26 being pressed, and the DISARM position is the state with no button pressed. This makes it impossible to configure the DISARM function in FS2020 as you would need to configure it as all five buttons 22-26 being released, but you can only specify up to two buttons for each control. I haven’t made any use of auto brake on my A320 flights yet, so I don’t know how big of a problem this is.
One other very minor issue is that the friction on the thrust levers was slightly too loose to begin with, so they would slowly slip back towards Idle from low thrust. This was easily rectified by tightening the friction screw at the back of the unit.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with the stick and quadrant. They certainly help with the immersion of flight sims and I’ve had fun reproducing real A320 flights that I’ve been a passenger on in the past, but from the pilot point of view. They’ve also highlighted the difference in precision and quality when compared with lower price sticks. I’m tempted to buy the pedals, and extra thrust quadrant section for four engine control next.
I bought the Thrustmaster TCA Captain pack to have more authentic flight controls for Airbus flight simming with the Fenix A320 and Flight Sim Labs A319/320. I have been going to a real A320 flight simulator and in between sessions I like to practice what I have learned back home on the home flight simulators.
The overall quality of the controls is decent for the price. It’s all made of the plastic but still of a high enough quality if you look after it.
How does it compare to real A320 flight controls? Well, the flight stick feels similar in shape in your hand, but the movement of the stick and resistance is nothing like an actual A320 flight stick. Does this mean it’s bad? No. The stick is based on the Thrustmaster T16000 and is still a high quality flight stick. The main difference in feeling between a real A320 flight stick and this one is that the Thrustmaster feels springy (as it it wants to return to center) when moving it around whereas the real flight stick feels heavy to use, not springy despite having a small level of self centering, and more fluid with more deflection possible. But to have this feeling in your home sim would cost thousands just for the flight stick, and it’s a huge unit. The stick is just the visible part.
The throttles look authentic. They are smaller than the real A320 throttles. Somewhere around half the size I’d say. Again, they are plastic rather than solid metal type of feel in the real controls. A lot of people say they are too lose. You can tighten them up with a screwdriver and instructions are included for that. They are far less precise than the real throttles and have much less travel in them. I find in the real sim you can have very precise throttle control, but with these it is much less. However, at the price you are paying they are still pretty good and really add to the experience. They still feel like Airbus throttles to me albeit smaller, a different feel because they are plastic, and less travel / precision.
The spoiler and flaps controls are fine. They don’t recreate the actual experience from the real sim because you cannot lift the knobs for example like you normally have to do, but they still allow for you to physically move something to set the flaps or spoilers rather than key presses. One thing I wish they had included is the ground spoiler arming in the spoiler control. Without that you can sometimes need to add spoiler during the approach phase, but when you retract the spoilers you then need to manually click the ground spoiler arming in the virtual cockpit rather than lifting the knob to arm them which would be far more realistic.
The rest of the controls on the throttle quadrant are mostly switches. In the real sim you would lift the engine knobs to move them, but here it is just a switch. But they still do the job ok.
Overall it is still a great set of controls for A320 flying, and I’m glad I bought it. It definitely gives you a more authentic experience in the home sim, and I enjoy using them for my practising. You would have to pay a huge sum of money to get anything better, and at the time of writing this review these provide the closest representation of Airbus controls in this price range.
Love the captain pack, I mainly fly msfs 2020 now along with the Fenix A320, for me, this is a must have. Just remember when you edit ur buttons, don’t touch the gear up or down binds and they are hard coded into the throttle. Love it.
(Disclaimer: I am not a qualified pilot and I am a newbie at flight sims – this was my entry-level purchase. I have just hit 100 hours in flight sim 2020.)
First of all I love the appearance of this. It’s very close to what the Airbus controls look like in pictures of the real ones and I’m aware that some real Airbus pilots have praised it for the same reason. The quadrant is primarily made of plastic, but the plastic feels high quality and sturdy given the price. It doesn’t look like cheap plastic either, the paint is nicely applied and gives it a near-metallic look. The joystick is also plastic, but feels good in my hand and doesn’t feel cheap; the movement is smooth and responsive, resets perfectly to centre every time and I’ve used it pretty heavily since I got it.
I now want to talk a bit about the customisability of this product, primarily the quadrant side. Firstly, every lever on here (both throttles, the flaps and the spoilers) can be customised. You can tweak the resistance to make it harder / easier to move and you can also change whether each lever clunks into the “indents” marked on the side or whether they just move smoothly from top to bottom. The throttle levers can either stop at, and require the flaps to be lifted in order to continue past, the “IDLE” position into reverse OR move smoothly from 100% to -25%. You also get a small screwdriver which can be used to tweak all of these things and best of all, this can be used to stick both throttle levers together if you don’t want to move them independently. This means you can even remap them to different axes and use them separately on one aircraft and then quickly transition back to a regular airbus setup by sliding the little stick into its hole – job done!
The joystick has a left/right twist which can be used in place of rudder pedals. This axis can also be locked with the press of a button on the joystick, to completely prevent any twisting from happening. It’s like a physical nose wheel lock! In addition you can remove both of the buttons from the top of the joystick (the red and black one opposite one another) and the joystick comes with spares, mirrored, which allow you to swap the sides and retain the same ergonomic feel of the buttons.
Next, the amount of buttons! There are so many mappable buttons which was my primary deciding factor when looking for one of these. I’m happy to confirm that you can do just about everything you’d need on most small aircraft (which can be mapped correctly, some mods need tweaking or 3rd party apps to assist with this) but don’t expect to be able to map all 575 (or so) A320 buttons & knobs to it! I’d hope that goes without saying. 🙂
The quadrant and Joystick both connect via separate USB connections. The quadrant can be detached at the quadrant end, so you can leave the cable in and move the quadrant to / forth your desk if you wish. The joystick unfortunately does not come with this luxury so requires you to move it and its entire cable to / from its “home”. It’s not a huge problem for me, but if you want modular cables for some reason (i.e. if you have a custom setup and need the cables to be properly tidied away but also want to remove / replace the joystick) this doesn’t have that option on the joystick, only the quadrant.
Considering the price this was a lot better than I expected it to be, particularly in terms of build quality and customisability. I use this pretty heavily and so far it’s not been disappointing in the slightest!
My experience with Thrustmaster over the years has been relatively hit and miss, but this one is definitely a hit.
5 / 5 as none of my “negatives” are worthy of reducing a star or really even complaining; I am merely pointing them out as part of my review.
I used this to play Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) and it worked out of the box. All the buttons/keys were mapped correctly and I had nothing to do. Everything feels good and the throttles are adjustable in terms of tension. My only gripe is the joystick, it somehow springs loaded and as soon as you let it go it just shoots back to the original position. Also, the plastic sometimes makes you feel like its something cheap, but the functionality wise is really good.
It looks great and works as one would expect. In addition the the standard knobs, buttons and levers like throttle, flap, spoilers etc there is also 10 or so buttons that you can bind to any of the aircraft functions. I have one set up to activate approach, another for trim etc but it is your choice.
That is all the good stuff and now for the not so good.
It was a bit of a chore to set it up for the Fenix A320. I watched boring video after boring video on YouTube and the one thing that they all failed to mention was that one sets it up in the MCDU inside the Fenix A320. I stuck with it and it is a joy to use.
I understand (but I could be wrong) that it is already configured for the FBW A320.
I have not tried it on any other aircraft so I cannot comment on those.
A good package for virtual Airbus pilots which helps take the realism and immersion up a notch. The intuitiveness of having additional flight controls to hand helps during the busy takeoff and approach/landing phases of flight when you don’t want to fumble for key assignments or mouse clicks in the virtual cockpit.
I dropped a star for the following reasons:
– Product doesn’t feel as premium as the price tag suggests.
– Throttle detents could have been spaced to more closely match the real A320 throttle quadrant.
– Spoiler lever doesn’t lift to ‘arm’ spoilers.
– Park brake handle doesn’t lift and turn.
These are minor drawbacks, particularly as I purchased this product with a sizeable discount. For a lower price this would have got 5 stars from me. At RRP I think it becomes a less essential purchase. That said, for anyone (like me) who spends countless hours flying Airbus aircraft it’s a no-brainer.
Had this for a few month now and its working great, don’t know if its my quadrant unit but my thrust detents wont work properly no more and the left one does weird stuff. Other than that its grea
The Captain pack comes with the joystick itself, the thrust levers, and the flap/speedbrake attachments.
The joystick is very similar to the real thing, with a few extra buttons here and there, which you could assign within your sim of choice to various functions. One of the things I really like, is the ability to switch over the control from left-handed operation to right, and vice versa. With the autopilot disconnect switch and A.N.other (that doesn’t exist in real life) being swappable.
This is a major plus point, as not only does it allow you to fly an Airbus style aircraft from either seat, with the controls correctly laid out, but, in the case of my lad, he’ll do his initial training in the DA40 from the left seat, so being able to ‘fly’ with his left hand and operate the throttle and other controls with his right – later switching seats as he progresses to the end of the course. And this pack allows him to switch over ‘seamlessly’.
The joystick itself, and the whole pack, is made from plastic, but generally feels substantial enough to put up with the rigours of simming. If you don’t have rudder pedals, the joystick has a twist function to allow some form of rudder control. This can be locked out with a switch underneath the base of the unit.
The thrust levers are set up for Airbus flight straight out of the box, with ‘detents’ for CLB/MCT/TOGA almost like the real thing. The ‘detents’ can be removed, again, by accessing the underside of the unit. Reverse lock switches are in place, though the ‘lift’ to go through the gate actually into reverse isn’t there. Likewise the engine switches are straight forward switches, whereas in real life, they have a ‘lift’ over the gate to activate. A shame this wasn’t incorporated, but not a deal breaker.
Just below the engine switches are the two fire indicators – only they’re not – they’ve been replaced by push button switches – which I think is a good compromise, it ‘looks’ the part, while adding some extra functionality, as again, these can be programmed/allocated to your liking.
And in-between the ‘fire indicators’ is the engine crank/start-ign rotary selector – all present and correct, though again, there is no ‘lift’ required to activate it (you’ll see a common theme here)!
Either side of the throttle quadrant, are the speedbrake, gear, and autobrake controls to the left, and flap, rudder trim, and park brake to the right.
Starting with the flap selector, it looks like a scaled down version of the real thing (the whole of the thrust lever assembly is scaled down to around 1/2 real size (ish – it’s been a few years since I flew Airbus). But, as with all other controls some of the real life features are missing – in this case, the lever that you have to pull up to release and move the selector from detent to detent is physically in place, but it doesn’t move, or serve any purpose other than ‘looking the part’. The detents themselves are all there for Flap positions 1, 2 & 3, so again, a decent compromise.
Below the flap lever is the rudder trim, along with the rudder trim reset button, and below that still is the park brake – again a simple switch, which should have a lift gate to prevent accidental movement – but doesn’t. Both of these controls are on the real aircraft, though they’re not positioned where they are here – but we can easily forgive that, as at least they have been included – though it is a shame that they used a generic rotary switch for the rudder trim (the same as the engine start selector) instead of something that looks like the real thing. At least the park brake is an accurate, but smaller, copy of the real thing.
The speedbrake then is basically a repeat of the flap lever; I can see why they’ve done this, as it makes things a lot cheaper to mass-produce, but does mean it’s not quite accurate. It looks right, but has no ‘push’ to release function, nor does it have a ‘pull’ to arm function. Again, it’s an acceptable compromise to keep costs down I suppose. Where it does differ from the real thing, which could have been easily avoided, were the number of detents, which the real thing doesn’t have – in real life, there is a ‘soft’ stop at the halfway mark to stop you inadvertently demanding more than half speedbrake (there are limitation on it’s use – though generally the aircraft won’t deploy more than you’re allowed, it will ‘complain’ with a warning that you’re trying to deploy too much). The detents can be removed entirely with adjustment from underneath, but there’s no facility to just have a single detent at the halfway point.
Just below the speedbrake is the gear lever. A much smaller copy of the real thing, and again, for sake of something to include, it’s not in the correct place, but happy to have it. You know what I’m going to say by now – again there’s no ‘lift’ protection, which is there in real life.
And finally, the Autobrake selector. On the single-aisle Airbus, this is a combination of three lit push buttons, to select, Low, Med, or Max. I have to assume that this is a copy of the autobrake switch on the 350/380 series aircraft (maybe the 330, but I don’t know). It has a few more selections available, including BTV, which is Brake To Vacate – something not available on single aisle Airbus – we don’t even have it on the 787. Again, the switch isn’t protected by a lift, or push, function as it would be in real life – just a plain rotary switch.
Connecting up to a PC requires just a single USB connection, as the units all link together before running a single cable to the computer. Run the Thrustmaster setup, and then it’s automictically recognised and configured for you, with most major controls being correctly assigned (this was using MS Flight Sim 2020).
All in all, for a couple of hundred quid, if you’re serious about your simming, it’s probably one of the best value packs out there. While it’s definitely Airbus centric, it can certainly be used for other types too, and there are plenty of spare buttons on the joystick base to assign other major functions.
It loses a star simply because of the compromises that TM have chosen to make in the name of cost savings and convenience – namely the lack of any ‘lift’ protection function on any switch or lever which would have them in real life. I can accept it overall though – too many people out there wouldn’t know about said protections and TM would most likely have a a lot of returns from people then forcing, and breaking, switches – and likely blaming the product!
So am I being mean in dropping the star? Probably! If you think so, feel free to take my 4 star review as a 5 star review – just accept that it’s almost like the real thing – but not quite! 😉
With twin notched throttles, spoilers and flaps at your fingertips, as well as engine starters, landing gear, hand brake, rudder trim and assorted configurable buttons. This is a great piece of kit. Of course it’s plastic and smaller than the real thing but it’s reassuringly heavy and a delight to use.
The spoilers, throttles and flaps/slats levers are shaped as their real counterparts and all have detents which make an audible ‘click’ when you reach said detent which makes everything a hell of a lot easier as you don’t have to look over to check you have the correct lever in the correct position as you can feel/hear them. You can also remove the detents by unscrewing a panel on the base of the quadrant and rotating it 180 degrees which I did for the spoilers to make it feel more authentic.
The only con for me is that the wire leading from the sidestick and from the throttle quad (2 separate wires) are shorter than most meaning I had to rearrange my gaming layout to be able to plug them into my PC. If you’re using a desk this wont be a problem but if you’re like me and play in your living room you may struggle slightly.