Guillemot HOTAS Cougar - Joystick, Throttle - Cable - USB

MODEL- 2960534                 VENDOR- GUILLEMOT INC.                       
                                                                            
FEATURES- HOTAS Cougar Flight Stick                                         
       Hands On Throttle and Stick, for use with PC, USB connector.         
       The HOTAS Cougar is a joystick and separate throttle, used primarily 
        with PC flight simulations. It is modelled directly after the joy-  
        stick and throttle (we call them controllers) inside a real F-16    
        cockpit. It even has all the lettering stamped into the joystick and
        throttle, just like the real ones. But this is only the beginning of
        the story ....                                                      
       It is the most programmable joystick and throttle. Ever. With a      
        Cougar, you never need to take your hands off the controllers. It   
        excels in its level of programmability, so that all your aircraft's 
        functions can be assigned to its various hats and buttons. It can   
        do anything you can do with a keyboard and mouse, but it can do a   
        whole lot more as well. It's fantastic for beginners, because in its
        default mode you don't need to do any programming. You just plug it 
        in, and go fly in your flight sim, allowing it to assign functions  
        to the various hats and buttons. You don't even need to learn how to
        program it either. It comes with over 30 pre-written files to       
        program it for different flight sims and games, and you literally   
        just need to press a button and it's ready for you to use. If you   
        want to learn how to program it, no problem. It comes with wizards, 
        and tutorials to gently ease you into it at a pace of your choosing,
        as well as extensive online and a superb printed manual to get help 
        from.                                                               
       For all its programmability, there's one factor above all else that  
        makes everyone say "Wow" when they first feel the Cougar. And that  
        quite simply is that they are made of metal. Once you've flown with 
        metal, you'll never go back to plastic - the difference is like     
        night and day. The cold feel of metal adds hugely to the realism and
        immersion factor, and being metal, these things weigh a ton. Again, 
        it just feels great and helps lose you into your flight simming     
        experience. Even all the hats and buttons on the controllers are    
        metal - it's just unbelieveable. A metal joystck needs some serious 
        serious springs to offer reistance to movement and return it to its 
        central position, and the Cougar feels just right in this respect.  
        They're strong, and impart much finer control. You'll never go back 
        to the traditionally sloppy sticks after flying with a Cougar.      
 * Replaceable joystick handles. The main joystick handle can be detached   
   simply by unscrewing it, and Thrustmaster are planning to develop other  
   handles, like for example those you'd find in an F-18 Hornet. A great    
   idea and a first once again for any stick developer.                     
 * Flash upgradeable. The Cougar's programmability amongst other features   
   can be easily updated without you needing to replace any components      
   within the stick. You'll find updated firmware here at Cougar World and  
   flash upgading your Cougar is a simple mouse click away.                 
 * Driverless. Unlike other controllers, the Cougar doesn't need to operate 
   through a software driver layer. It does everything in hardware, even    
   holding its calibration data in hardware, and that means that all your   
   computing power is available to your flight sim. It also means that the  
   Cougar is fully compatible with Windows 98 Second Edition, Millenium     
   Edition, 2000, XP and future versions.                                   
 * Rudder connectivity. You won't need to throw away your old gameport      
   rudders when the Cougar comes out. You can plug them into the joystick   
   base directly. And it's not just Thrustmaster rudders that work with the 
   Cougar. Any compatible analog gameport rudders work just fine.           
 * Precision. The Cougar generates over 3,000 discrete values from each of  
   its two joystick axes, for increased precision when flying. Compare that 
   to the best of the rest - 256 discrete values. The Cougar uses high      
   precision sealed pots and fast digital oversampling to eliminate spiking 
   issues.                                                                  
 * Auto calibrating. The Cougar continuoulsy calibrates itself as you use   
   it, so calibration issues become a thing of the past. Of course, if you  
   want to manually calibrate it, that option is also available fro you.    
 * A single USB connector. The throttle (and rudders if you have them) plug 
   into the joystick base, and only one full speed USB lead connects your   
   Cougar to the computer. There's 2 advantages to this. The first is that  
   your controllers are seen as a single controller by the computer and     
   that's important for most flight sims. The second is that you don't need 
   to spend money on a USB hub if you've got another USB device like a mouse
   conencted to your machine.                                               
                                                                            
CONNECTION- Universal Serial Bus port                                       
REQUIRES- USB port, DirectX 8.0 (Microsoft®), Pentium (or compatible),      
           Windows® 98/2000/ME.                                             
us.thrustmaster.com