The flight sticks still in stock over Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day flightstick deals
(Image credit: Future)

Update 3:20 PM EDT - Welp, three of our recommendations have sold out. We continue to see unprecedented demand for flight sticks, so shop accordingly. We've corralled the out-of-stock deals into a separate section at the bottom of the page in case they miraculously return.

It's been tough times for the sim community. After a genre drought we've had the amazing Microsoft Flight Sim and Star Wars: Squadrons within months of each other... and it's been almost impossible to actually buy a new flightstick. But Prime Day seems to have encouraged a few out of the woodworks.

I guess these kinda count as Prime Day flightstick deals, thanks to their proximity to the Amazon sales event, but they're still a fair bit higher priced than they would have been this time last year. But we've got to roll with the stock-based punches these days, what with Nvidia RTX 3080 supply problems and the like.

At least there are some available now though, which will be music to all of us who have been relegated to piloting our X-Wings with a damned Xbox pad.

Sticks in stock

VAKABOX-2113 flightstick | $55.99 at Amazon

VAKABOX-2113 flightstick | $55.99 at Amazon
Okay, this is a bit of a punt, it's an unknown brand which looks to have essentially stuck it's name on something it hasn't actually made. There are a couple of these sticks around, and this is the cheapest. It has all the essentials, like rudder and throttle control,  and is cheap for a stick, so is worth a punt.

CH Products Flightstick Pro | $127 at Amazon

CH Products Flightstick Pro | $127 at Amazon
Though it looks a little like it's come out of a Christmas cracker, the CH Products Flightstick Pro is a serious piece of kit. It's more loose than a more arcade-y stick, but is aimed at flight sim enthusiasts and is about function over form. It's a solid, reliable, and accurate flightstick that will serve you well.

Thrustmaster T16000M | $177.84 at Newegg

Thrustmaster T16000M | $177.84 at Newegg
It's frustrating that not so long ago the T16000M could be picked up for well under $100, but the times are tough for flight sim folk. You are going to have to pay more for a stick today, and the T16000M is a solid option. It's just a rather pricey one by yesterday's standards.


Ejected (not in stock)

Thrustmaster USB Joystick | $69.94 at Amazon

Thrustmaster USB Joystick | $69.94 at Amazon
This is at least a known brand, and Thrustmaster do make some of the best flightsticks around. This one... is a little more basic than something like the uber expensive Warthog, but still has a hat switch and tiny throttle control, though is more arcade-y than other sim sticks.

Mad Catz V.1 | $115.93 at Newegg

Mad Catz V.1 | $115.93 at Newegg
You'll hear 'I thought they were dead' aimed at Mad Catz more times than at Snake Plissken, but the company that once manufactured its goods now runs the brand as a whole. This angular stick is reportedly accurate enough for flight sims, though there's a blue LED atop it which might annoy.

Thrustmaster T16000M HOTAS | $329.90 $315.54 at Newegg

Thrustmaster T16000M HOTAS | $329.90 $315.54 at Newegg
This is the only hands-on throttle and stick combo we could track down that would get to you probably this month, and will at least deliver the sort of experience you'd want from a good pair of flight controllers.

Dave James
Editor-in-Chief, Hardware

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.

TOPICS