Logitech G X52 Pro USB Flight Control System

I have wanted to dip my toes into flight simming for a long time, and the big problem I've had is finding a stick that will work with DCS (that is, has enough hats and selector switches for modern aircraft) while being at an affordable price. There are some nice looking sticks out there, but I just dont have $500+ to drop on some professional level equipment when I really am looking for a higher end entry level product. The X52 seemed perfect, plenty of buttons and switches, enough hats, looked comfortable and exactly what I wanted. Plus the price (~$200 at time of review) was pretty attractive as well. So I pulled the trigger. The stick itself is nice. Its all plastic and feels like it, but the buttons and switches all feel comfortable and nice. I have big hands, but the throttle assembly felt a little large to me. Maybe something I would have gotten used to? In the pro column, though, is that the throttle has a ton of little buttons and switches tucked away, stuff that would make MFD use in DCS very simple or which could be good radiator toggles in IL-2. All the buttons on the stick, felt good and natural. In particular was the Fire A button which is tucked away underneath a safety cover. Flipping that open and hitting the button underneath is SUPER satisfying. I really wish this stick had worked out, because I do like it. But I have to give it a one star review because the stick very quickly ran into serious functionality issues. Like, my very first flight out in IL-2. The throttle worked fine and in two days of testing never had an issue. In that same time, the stick maybe worked normally through one dogfight and otherwise had major issues. The stick axis worked, though would some times get 'stuck' in a certain position (eg. nose down) and had to be reset either by pushing the axis all the way to the gimbal limit and let it move back to center. Or, in as many cases, it needed to be unplugged and replugged into the throttle base. The toggle switches on the stick's base always worked, but about ten minutes into use the buttons on the stick started to die. Either they would stick 'on,' for example the trigger would stick on and I would shoot through my ammunition, or more commonly (about 80% of the time) they would just stop working all together. I was prepared to fix this on my own, I figured it may have been a software or drive issue. But after doing some digging, no, this is a common hardware issue in the stick itself. It seems the only solution is to take the stick apart, remove any damaged wires (hopefully there *are* damaged wires, not always the case it seems) and then resolder the whole thing. Quite frankly too much work to put into a product that I purchased brand new. And this seems to be a very common problem with the stick, one that Logitek has seemingly decided not to fix. After doing a little more reading online (wish I had done that in the first place tbh) it seems like the whole X50-series has similar QA and build quality issues, either the sticks come broken or they wear out so quickly as to require a quick upgrade to something better. So overall, despite being a well *designed* and satisfying product I would have to caution you to be very wary in actually purchasing this stick. Its probably not something worth buying new, rather something you may treat as a 'project' stick which you might repair/modify one day into an actually good stick. Or, as someone put in it in one of the troubleshooting threads I read, with the x52 it seems the first thing you'll get is the stick, the second thing you get are tears, the third thing you get is a new stick.