I’m looking for a general flight stick to use with aircraft that use a flight in IRL. I’m struggling to find one which looks and feels like you would get in real life instead of a generic joystick.
Are there any in the market currently?
The only one that’s really modeled after something you’ll find in civil aviation is the Thrustmaster airbus pack.
Depends on what aircraft you’re interested in flying.
If you want to fly Airbus and wants the feel of Airbus flight stick, Go with the TCA Captain Pack Airbus Edition | Thrustmaster
IF you want to fly Boeing airliners and wants the feel of a Boeing Yoke, Go with the TCA Yoke Pack Boeing Edition | Thrustmaster
If you want to fly small prop GA aircraft, you can go with ALPHA FLIGHT CONTROLS – Honeycomb Aeronautical (flyhoneycomb.com) and BRAVO THROTTLE QUADRANT – Honeycomb Aeronautical (flyhoneycomb.com)
If you want to fly Military aircraft like the F/A 18, a HOTAS like the X56 VR Simulator Compatible HOTAS Joystick - Logitech G AU is good too.
So it depends on which aircraft you’ll generally be flying the most, and pick the one that’s most appropriate.
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I already have the TCA Airbus sidestick but I’m looking for something more realistic to fly with Cirrus aircraft and other GA aircraft that use a stick instead of a yoke. I already have the Honeycomb Yoke too for Boeing aircraft and all aircraft that use a yoke.
Im looking for something just like this but there doesn’t seem to be anything on the market which is affordable. This Elite stick is around $1000.
I understand that this is more a yoke than a sidestick but what I’m looking for is something similar quality to the Honeycomb yoke but a plain looking sidestick.
Ehh well, there’s a saying where I came from “when there is quality, there is money”. Meaning the more realistic and more advanced quality that you’re looking for, the more expensive it is.
I would think $1000 would be okay, as long as you are planning to fully utilise it to make it worth.
Like, if you would be using it to fly Cirrus for 1000 hours within the next year. Then you can justify the cost by actually paying for $1 per hour that you fly with it. The more hours you fly, the “cheaper” per hour that you actually pay for it. So it can become a worthwhile investment, if you’re willing to commit to it.
But if you’re only going to buy it for the sake of “just experiencing the feel” of using an accurate and realistic stick that you’re only going to use no more than 50 hours on the aircraft. Then it’s probably not worth getting.
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VKB MKII, be careful with Thrustmaster’s joysticks (TCA included) because they have a cheap potentiometer on Z Axis (tiller) and it wont last long
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Easily fixed by opening the case, rerouting the cable to be clear from the Z Axis potentiometer. Been using the thrustmaster for over 1000 hours.
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better not ask things like this, is only you have to choice for your self prefers, for first way you have to know or even imagine what kind of joy can exist in the world, then choice stuff that closed to what do you want, for me better than x65f can be only x65f throttle base + 8.500 euro f-16 pro base+stick(unfortunately is haven’t twist, so need good *rudder pedals(mfg crosswind v3 right now i think the best choice)) from realsimulator.com, but i just have no opportunity for get this because of my wallet have limited size(may be latter, but i don’t think so, mine x65f good enough for me)
if not talking about force sensor stick, probably warthog, or force feedback brunner-innovation.swiss, or may be x56 or t 1600 or whatever, and this is only about sticks, but in market you can found very good yoks, if you have unlimited budget, you can take one force stick, one force feedback yoke and one ffb joy, afaik all ffb can work without ffb function like it used in some aircraft today, so i think you have to give some time to choice it by your self without any advices
*ah. if you told about realism, so you will not use super intuitive and convenient twist and must to got rudder pedals
This is only true in those cases where poor manufacturing/QA of TM results in a poorly routed wire, this is not the only cause of failures.
The mount method is actually flawed and causes pressure on the potentiometer which causes excessive wear and early deterioration. There is a mod for this and it works ok but…
“Easily fixed” is relative. I have a technical background, lots of tools and plenty of experience with tech like this so it is easier for me (even though it’s still actually a PITA because of poor design, not designed to actually be serviced etc and removing the trigger pin is always a proper pain.)
Additionally you can’t get replacement pots from TM or an aftermarket pot that works particularly well.
There are a couple of contactless sensor mods in the wild which are pretty interesting from an academic perspective but once you are going down that road you might as well have bought a better stick to start with.
The older Green variant of the T16000 was actually better made. Still not great, still the same longer term design flaws but QA was clearly better.
The newer variants are all pretty shoddy.
The VKB Gkadiator NXT is a better joystick in almost every way and doesn’t cost that much more (in fact during the worst of the scalping the NXT was frequently cheaper)
However to answer OP question.
If you are ok with a more military style grip and prepared to pay a little more for excellent quality then the VKB MCGU on a Gunfighter base is the joystick to look at and the Virpil MT50 is worth a look also. Both are modelled after real aircraft.
Did you check " RealSimGear Cirrus Cockpit - RealSimGear.com" you just need a really good sponsor or win lottery 
Yes I’ve seen them. If money was no object I would go with RealSimGear products, they look excellent.
I too like to fly (besides heli) with the cirrus, friend of mine fly’s the real thing and I can join him and learn from him…
In Sim I use a "old"saitek X-56 and however the stick and throttle are inversed of the cirrus, I have no problems with this (in the real plane I sit at the right, and there stick is right and throttle left )
Also I am one of those that can’t go back to 2D so with my rift the immersion is good enough to not bother.
Totally agree. DO NOT BUY Thrustmaster Airbus or T16000 joystick (they are basically the same inside). I have my 2nd in 1 year, and the 2nd now has the same issue with the z-axis after 1 month already (it will be send back of course).
I have tried multiple repairs until the point it really broke, and now my 2nd has the same issue. It is just bad quality.