"
The Gravis Phoenix was a low budget alternative to the (then extremely costly) HOTAS solutions from
Thrustmaster
and
CH Products.
The stick itself looked like something out of a 60s science-fiction movie, with loads of rubbery little buttons, and mounted on a square, knobbly base with an angled arm sticking out on the left to hold the combined throttle and rudder. Under the base were sliders to change the spring stiffness.
The many buttons were easily programmable through a DOS based interface that was intuitive and easy to use, but unfortunately you could only assign two keys to each button, with no macros or chords available. Still, when us Phoenix owners flew
Air Warrior
or
Warbirds
we felt like we were using the real thing. "
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