Logitech G X56 HOTAS

I’m so exited!!! Just received notification that my X56 has shipped and will be here Wednesday.

Any tricks or tips for using it would be appreciate. I recently also added the Razer BLACKSHARK V2 PRO wireless headset to my flight simulations. I have started using it with Discord and also really like the sound from MS2020 on it. The surround sound of where the other planes are is pretty cool.

I’m sure will start up all night Wednesday learning how to use the X56.

I have to be ready to fly Thursday night in the Cookies’s flight using the new X56.

You’ll have more buttons and switches than you’ll know what to do with. lol

The default mapping is actually not bad out of the gate. You can tweak it as you go to make it work for you. Personally, I liked putting autopilot commands on the switches on the throttle. Was much easier than having to click or spin things on screen with a mouse in a bouncy cockpit.

The one feature I loved the most was the small analog thumb stick on the main stick that’s used as camera free look, and click it to re-center your view. It makes looking around and manipulating the exterior camera SOOOOOO much easier.

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First thing when I got my X56, delete all the profiles and start binding them from scratch.

There is a known issue with the X56 sending random keypresses. The solution is one of the following:
Keep the throttle on USB 3.0. If that doesn’t work, try separating the joystick and put it on USB 2.0. Finally, you could try a powered USB hub.

Thanks for the replies. I had read a thread about it acting up and it being due to power. I have two USB 3 slots in the back waiting for it. Hopefully they will have enough power. and if not, i have four other on front. This machine has USB ports galore.

I wish we could have a wireless joystick and HOTAS setup…

Never had issues with my X56 throttle or X56 Stick.

Neither have I… That was just wishful thinking… I play on my living room with a living room PC… having cables for my throttle and joystick is just a hassle. It’s not an issue per se… Just that it would be a whole of a great convenience for me if it we have a wireless joystick.

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Sure you will be happy with the X56, build quality is pretty good and I believe best bang for buck overall.
I have a full Logitech G set up now, wireless keyboard/mouse, X56 and rudders.
Powered USB is a handy addition I believe. As well as making sure get enough power can manage the devices/wires a little better. I have one with 4 USBs which I can switch off individually when not using and I also have my gamepad plugged into it .

It’s here and hooked up. Now to learn how to use it. It’s bigger than I expected, but I like the size.

This is now my setup. Use the left screen for ATC and various displays. The corkboard on the right has a list the most frequent airports I used in FSX and now in the process of updating frequencies for ATIS and ILS Approaches in FSXX. I use the MacBook Pro on the right to pull up approach plates and charts.

They seem small on the photo, but the mail monitor is a 27 inch and the left is 24. I could use bigger monitors, but I have already spent enough for now. If I upgraded the monitors, then my GPU will struggle and I will have to upgrade that too :frowning:

I have a folder in OneDrive, so I can use my Mac or iPad to pull up approach info. Now off to fly I go :slight_smile:

What do X56 owners do about tuning all the lights off on the controllers? In setting I was able to turn all off except for the S1/M1/M2 switch light.

Do you drop power to those USB ports, or just leave that one light on?

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One of the reasons I use an usb hub with on off buttons for each device. Gives full power when in use and easy to switch off when not

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I have never had any issues with the lights on the controllers, and having lights on keyboard, computer does fine with them.

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JohnAndalina,

I just received a four port powered USB 3 Hub. I will use two ports for the X56 HOTAS and another for my Razer Wireless Headset transmitter, which I only use for FS. This way I can power on/off all three at once.

Powering the HOTAS will ensure they get plenty of power, which a few users said they had problems due to low power, and will save power supply power if I elect to upgrade my NVIDIA 2060 Super to a more power hungry GPU.

I only have a 500 watt power supply and have a Dell XPS 8940, which uses their own power supply and I don’t know if they even sell any which are more powerful.

Great, IMO it’s the best solution especially as the USB hub’s are relatively cheap and always useful.

Like your set up in the picture btw and hope you are happy with the X56 and additional kit!

Very Happy with the X56 HOTAS. I have binded some more switches and it’s like night and day compares to my old Logitech Extreme 3D Pro I was using!

Like others have done, I have started added more flight control inputs to the X56, specially some Autopilot stuff. I’ve added heading and altitude controls to it. I like doing IFR flights and it makes it easy to change things when the tower changes your direction or altitude on approached. And of course the ability to enable/disable different parts of the Autopilot.

Got it really quick. I ordered it from BHPhotoVideo and when ordered they said it would be two to four weeks before they had it in stock. I ordered on a Thursday January 14th and they shipped the following Monday and I had it Wednesday January 20th. Got it un under a week and I didn’t pay an inflated price, just the standard $249 list price from Logitech.

Really very happy with it and so glad I got it!

Still programming switches/slider/wheels on my X56. One thing that doesn’t seem to make much sense is why have two columns to assign another switch to the same function.

I’m already running out of switches to assign so why have that second column to assign a second key?

Anyone use that second column for assignments? Is there some advantage that I am missing?

Why not? Sometimes you need to double-bind different switches to the same command. There’s also a need to actually assign more than 2 keys to be bound to the same command.

For example, in the Airbus TCA Quadrant Addon, we don’t have an arm spoilers button. So we can bind the arm spoilers to the autobrake knob, since whenever you need autobrake, you would need to arm the spoilers anyway.

But since we have multiple knobs with the autobrake, DISARM - BTV - LO - 2 - 3 - HI
We can assign the autobrake to the BTV and anything that comes after that. So you would need to bind, BTV, LO, 2, 3, and HI buttons all to the same SET SPOILERS command. So that whenever you pick and choose whichever autobrake level that you want, the spoilers will always be armed. In this case, we actually need more than 2 columns to be assigned to the same function.

NEO4316,

Not sure if the setup for the Airbus TCA Quadrant and the Logitech/Saitek X56 are similar. And I’ve only had this X56 for about one week.

But what I think you are saying is that you can assign multiple commands to one switch. I’m questioning the opposite. Having multiple switches perform the same command. Take a look in the photo of Decrease Heading Bug. There’s a second column so you can assign two switches to the same command.

I can assign the same ley to multiple commands. It will warn you first that it’s in use for something else, but it will let you bind to multiple commands. I added photos of that too.

I guess that second column is there if you want to use two different switches for the same command.

I’m already running out of switches and may have to start getting creative like you and have one switch do multiple things.


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No, I’m actually talking about the same thing you’re talking about. I have both the TCA quadrant and the X56 and their setup is completely different. But since I fly the A320 almost exclusively, I’m using the TCA quadrant for most of the time. While my X56 is reserved for other things like Ace Combat, or Star Wars Squadrons. I did use the X56 for a while for MSFS before I got my TCA. Yet the concept is the same across different devices.

I mentioned about just one command which is the SET SPOILERS ARMING or something like that (I can’t remember the exact wording from the top of my head) to multiple switches. In my TCA Addon case, is to different switches in the TCA quadrant itself all the buttons for BTV autobrake, LO autobrake, 2 Autobrake, 3 Autobrake, and MAX autobrake all need to be set into one command, which is the SET SPOILERS ARMING. So this is a scenario where you need to bind multiple buttons into the same command. By default you can only bind 2 switches into 1 command. Which is represented by the two columns that you can assign. I’m just giving you the example of a scenario where you would need to bind two switches to one as I mentioned above. In my case, I’m actually need to bind more than 2 switches to one command since I need to bind 5 switches instead all to do the same Set spoilers arm.

If you’re running out of buttons to bind. I suggest you create separate profiles each for a specific aircraft. Like for example, you don’t need mixture or magneto if you fly the A320, but you need to if you’re flying the cessna.

If you fly the jet aircraft, you might need to bind the slider 33 to the HOLD REVERSE THRUST. that you can use to slide it and push the throttle to engage the reverse thrust. But you don’t need slider 33 for other aircraft that doesn’t have reverse thrust. Thus freeing it to be bound to other commands.

Just think of the very basic thing that you can’t live without to be bound to the X56. Everything else, you have to live with using the mouse to do them.

Joystick button 31 to both decrease and extend flaps is a bad idea (Extend means completely extend the flaps to full. But you also have decrease the flaps to the same button which will mess up the flaps configuration). I suggest you put 28 to decrease flaps, and 29 to increase flaps (it’s the little black slider at the back that goes up and down but has a neutral position in the middle). That’s all the controls for the flaps you need. And you can have 30 and 31 to be bound to something else.

The reason why I avoid 30 and 31 to flaps is because I tend to accidentally move the knob while flying which extends/retracts the flaps accidentally when I don’t want to. At least with 28 and 29, they’re locked in position, and you would need to intentionally push down or up to do the flaps.

Everything else, just think about what kind of aircraft you want to fly, and set your X56 with the buttons and commands that are relevant to your flying style for that aircraft. And test everything. Once you set it up, and you want to fly another aircraft, do the same process. duplicate the profile and make changes to the one that you want to change and make it relevant for that aircraft.