This is a Great idea!
Warning: Long post! 
My setup*
My setup when at "home",* all from CH Products:
- 586 Combatstick
- Pro Throttle
- Pro Pedals
I also have my own configuration file, mainly because I want trim controls to be placed as on the aircraft I fly most (i.e. pjedvaj's
Pilatus PC-9M). In the default configuration the hat rocker usually used for elevator and aileron trim instead is used for view control.
Why I bought them specificallyI usually plan to stick with my stuff for 5 to 10 years, and want to by high quality gear. In order to do so I did some research on the net comparing mainly CH Products, Logitech, Saitec and Thrustmaster. What I was aiming for was a joystick, throttle and pedal setup with enough buttons for a HOTAS** setup, possibly later getting a throttle quadrant and a yoke.
Keep in mind that I had below experiences while doing my research about 1 1/2 year ago; my memory might not be all correct.Thrustmaster, which I looked at first, seem to have joysticks with a good build quality, but scratching under the surface I found that their top of the line joysticks had some problems. There was some mechanical problem which the enthusiast knew about and fixed upon delivery, but there was also some firmware and/or driver bugs with the initial releases that should not have made it out. Even so, their top of the line looked promising and their support seemed great.
Saitec yokes have appeared here far to many times with the exact same problem, a hat rocker very often is wired in a way that makes the view spin around either leftwards (or rightward, I may not remember correctly). The real downer is that they seem to have no interest in fixing the problem, which is either in hardware or software. That's pretty disappointing as their stuff otherwise seem great.
Logitechs lower and mid end joysticks are well renowned, but their try at a high end HOTAS setup (G940?) seems to be plagued. Reading their own support forum was really disappointing. What would be known as the "reversal bug", because moving the joystick forward, then back slightly would cause the output to jump and nearly make formation flying and aiming impossible, was discovered within weeks of release, but the forum posts got unanswered for months. The problem seemed to be in the firmware and was related to the force feedback. Doing anything getting even close to a fix took many months further, and when I was looking at it (November 2010?) a bug fix beta was on the way only to a select few, and only after one compassionate employee seem to have needed to pull some strings to even get permission to do something, as research and development was focusing on another product.
Finally, after seeing that
CH Products line, apart from getting USB instead of game port connectors, seemed to not have changed since my early FS 5.1 days and most of all having seen
this excellent and thorough six-page review I settled for them. Also keeping in mind that the joysticks are just a side business to they're real business, industrial joysticks, is helping a bit, as well as that they are a family owned company. They are a bit on the expensive side though, and here in Sweden surprisingly hard to find.
As a side note CH products seem to be the only one of them selling spare parts, like cords and potentiometers, to their stuff.
My experiencesMy biggest error was doing all the configuration work before installing the drivers or simply that I installed the drivers. The stick, throttle and pedals worked well right out of the box, so I configured them up to my liking. But when installing the drivers all button assignments shifted. *sigh* I had to do all the configuration again, but now had the experience of doing that the first time, and the help of their setup and calibration software. js-demo is not for mere mortals that think in decimal.
Flying with this setup is a dream compared to mouse and keyboard. You have so much greater control. Formation flying, and even just cruising gets a lot easier when you can fine tune the throttle. And crosswind landings get a lot more challenging and fun with pedals.
Also having realistic trim controls is rewarding. Trimming a plane up makes for almost hands-fre flying for short periods, like when looking at the map (or answering the phone). Remember PAT REA (When changing horizontal or vertical speed, first adjust
Power,
Attitude and
Trim, then trim
Rudder,
Elevator and
Aileron).***
A few words on flying with pedalsCrosswind landings and even taxing never get the same again. Consider training taxing in crosswind first. Remember to keep the wing on the wind side low, so the wind does not get under it lifting the wing and making steering a lot harder. I tended to weather-wane, pointing the nose towards the wind a lot the first days, running off the taxi-/runway.
Other postsA few other post I've made about my setup, though I pretty much summed them up above:
*
I'm working to far away from "home", and have not got around to get them to where I'm living while working. I may or may not get around to bring them with me.**
Hands On Throttle And Stick, i.e. you will (almost) never have to hunt the keyboard.***
As found in P-764, T-6B Primary Contact Flight Training Instruction (PDF) on the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) website.
EDIT: Added to the wiki as a sub page to my user page (link).
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