I picked these up, although I can’t use them yet on Xbox, as they need the VelocityOne yoke/throttle in order to work (or Turtle Beach’s upcoming flight stick). I sold my VelocityOne when I went Honeycomb for yoke/throttle, but I do have their flight stick on preorder. I’ve still unboxed them and fiddled around with them a bit but can’t offer any in-flight impressions.
Was using T.Flight HOTAS One pedals along with Honeycomb’s stuff and was never really dissatisfied. My feet sat a little close together for my liking, and I could see where the rail system would gum up or cause some sticking, though that never really happened to me.
I actually picked up a set of Logitech rudders as well, a few weeks back, just to try them out. Ended up sending them back before even plugging them in. Honeycomb’s Xbox hub allows for the Logitech pedals to work on Xbox and just by looking at pictures of them I thought they had to have been an upgrade over my TFRP (at least to get me by until Charlie releases). I hated them - they slid all over the carpet and felt terribly cheap and plasticky.
Since Charlie seems to be vaporware at the moment, and since TB’s flight stick looks so rad (kinda wanna get into military/stick aircraft more), I thought Turtle Beach’s solution would be the current sweet spot for an Xbox setup.
As far as customization and quality of product, TB rudders seem excellent. Little noisy on the push-pull axis but cool that they didn’t cheap out with potentiometers and went with hall effect sensors on these axes. Swapping out the GA/Airliner styles of pedals is a bit arduous but nice that they give you that option all in one package (with their patented little allen key system - works well!) Never tried swapping out the springs but again, appreciated that they give you that option out of the box. Included 3M sticky pads for the bottoms allow for excellent carpet grip - they are not going anywhere. And they are BEEFY. Very nice feeling and heavy. Some plastic here too, yes, but there’s also metal in this construction and they look built to take a beating. I set them up under my desk in both width configurations (narrow and expanded) and although unrealistic, the fatigue of keeping your legs close together with the TFRP was totally alleviated by the TB rudders, even in their narrow configuration. Widen them up and take an Airbus up in the air and you’ll feel like you’re sitting on a La-Z-Boy when they’re expanded out to full width. Feels pretty good.
As far as the angle of the pedals, yeah - it doesn’t feel too unnatural to me, coming from the TFRPs, but looking at pictures of the Charlies, I could see where I would like those better. Sleeker design. I took a Cessna up for a discovery flight a few months ago and don’t remember a whole lot about what the real-life pedals felt like, but I don’t think my heels were on the ground…unless I was doing it wrong (definitely possible - was pretty overwhelming!) The GA pedals on the TB rudders do a good job at making you feel like you bought two sets of pedals for one (high) price. It does feel like a totally different experience and more akin to what I would assume the TPRs feel like.
Toe brakes feel great too. Good compression on that axis. That was probably my least favorite part of using TFRPs - yeah, there’s brakes, but they feel like…that. Turtle Beach did a much better job emulating toe brakes.
Overall, I think I’ll use them (gently!) and maybe try to sell once Charlie is released, depending on how well-received those end up being. Would feel nice to have the entire Honeycomb set. But again, their flight stick is still something I’ll probably run in my setup as well, even though that’s not the topic at hand here, and it’s worth noting that Turtle Beach has been absolutely awesome in the flight sim community since breaking into it with their VelocityOne. All the supply chain excuses we hear from everyone else, missed ship dates, no customer communication - none of this is an issue with Turtle Beach and they’re innovating and releasing pretty sweet hardware at a very exciting pace. I think these rudders ARE priced a bit high, but happy to support what they’re doing and confident I have the best Xbox setup you can have at present.