With Flight Simulator 2024 coming up, it was a good time to start looking at the flight stick market again. Since the boom of the sim market, we’ve seen, unlike many people, I was still hard stuck using my old Logitech joystick from when I was in high school, so I thought it was time to change that with the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck.
The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck is HOTAS (hands-on throttle-and-stick) with a lot of dials, switches and the first one on the market to include a touch screen display. It was a little overwhelming pulling it out of the box but at the same time excited to run it through some titles.
Out of the box, the construction of the units were very sturdy and had a bit of weight to them. Great for desk placement without the issue of the unit moving or tilting. Majority of the stick and throttle were coated in a nice plush soft rubber making it feel premium and adding extra grip for those sweaty hands while in-game. The Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck also features RGB lighting which is also customisable via the software. You can give it a very combat look with some night vision looking green or go simple with some nice light blue.
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There’s a lot of buttons to utilise and probably, maybe too much or not. I did find myself using all the assigned buttons in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, especially that pinky trigger to brake. The trigger itself feels amazing, with the actuation similar to a gaming mouse so you get some satisfying audible click when pulling it.
The most notable stand out feature for the Turtle Beach Velocity Flight Deck are the screens. No other HOTAS setup on the market features two screens, a small one situated above the joystick and a big touch screen below the throttle. These screens add to the immersion of the product giving you extra buttons plus information.
The touch screen is configurable and you can have multiple profiles. The design is similar to a stream deck if you’ve used one basically allowing to place buttons mapped on the screen. They’re preset ones if you’re too lazy to customise but overall it’s a cool addition – if you’re gonna use it.
Majority of the physical buttons on the unit are programmable, it was actually hard to count how many buttons and switches there were honestly – there’s a lot but the box says 90 so we’ll go with that. Honestly, you’ll probably find yourself mapping this setup for an hour before any flying.
Not all is perfect with the Velocity Flight Deck however. Software wise, annoyingly it’s only available via the Microsoft store. As for me, luckily I do use the Microsoft store however this is not the case with a lot of gamers who avoid it. A separate download not attached to the store would have been better.
While considered a premium product, the quality of the product ain’t all there. While the majority of the switches and buttons feel high end or premium for this price bracket, some feel cheap and at times, off. For example, the same set of switches could feel different and not activate or click the same. While minor, it kinda throws off the overall product where the majority of it feels amazing.
