I will +1 to CH. The stick is loose feeling but so far great. Fighter stick, someone mentioned you need big hands, its true. I can't reach all the buttons and hats, but I've learned to move my hand positions w/out skipping a beat to hit all the buttons.
The pedals are excellent, only complaint is the foot placement should've been a little wider. I think CH was catering to the ladies
. But its smooth and IL-2 translates oh so awesome to rudder.
The throttle is great also. I thought, 'nah I can use the throttle on the fighter stick' but decided to get it anyway (save shipping) and due to recommendations from CH hotas users' postings. Whats cool is the extra buttons and hats on the throttle really help with adding more flight necessary controls at your finger tips.
What I like about CH is the smoothness and feel. They translate very well to IL-2. I have Il-2 on 100% sensitivity and I can fly easy. I like the feel of the pedals and its so much better than the twist on joysticks. Twist on joysticks for rudder is like having soy tofu meat as opposed to CH pedals for rudder, a filet mignon when you have beef cravings.
Only thing lacking are trim wheels on throttle but you can get over that with CH programming.
CH allows you to use the joystick straight out of the box (XP has settings in game controllers in control panel and you can configure there and in IL-2 hotas settings) or you can get the CH control manager software and program as much as you want for those wanting to delve into that.
In this I found out that its better to program using CH control manager software as you can get more out of your CH set up.
It's well worth the price tag and warranty is long (2 yrs).
With my previous joystick (logitech) 70% sensitivity was bouncing around the place (I like my control settings sensitive, a carry over for max mouse sensitivity from FPS days).
Also I ran into several posts in the 'zoo and CH hanger where people still use the gameport versions and been using same equipment today that predated IL-2.
Not only that, a friend works for the govt with UAV's programming teams and the UAV crews use CH stuff to fly them around.
That would be sick / cool / awesome / tight / fresh / tits if the HOTAS warthog gave every sim you used it with an avenger gatling gun in game like Chuck Norris mere presence includes his uber roundhouse kick.