There are a lot of videos and posts out there which describe bad experiences with the Logitech Flight Yoke System.
Look here and there and every–where. (Just to pick a few examples).
I did some research before I bought it. But, probably like many other people who did the same, I thought: Nah, can’t be that bad, it’s been sold so many times over the years, and the reviews on Amazon are generally favorable. And, above all, it’s cheap, I don’t wanna invest that much in a niche product. My wife’s annoyed enough as it is about my flight sim hobby – all these wasted hours in which I could have repaired the house, washed some dishes, did some vacuuming, whatever. She’s right, of course, as wives usually are. And, I thought, maybe the yoke will work for me, and all these folks who are complaining are picky bastards, never satisfied with anything. Boy was I wrong.
This particular product has three distinct issues, and to me it’s a “yoke” that they’re still selling it, after years of seemingly not improving anything. Despite many documented support cases and negative user feedback. So I’ll add my small part to the overall picture about this product to help people make an informed decision: Whether it makes sense to buy this yoke or invest in something more expensive. You can already guess what my recommendation will be, and I will explain my reasoning.
I bought the Logitech Flight Yoke System in November 2024, so at the time of this writing it’s 5 months old. After fixing the most immediate problems on my own and investing some more money, I’ve been using it a fair bit, during an estimated 150 to 200 hrs of flying, mainly in FS2020 and FS2024. And now it’s broken again, see below.
Issue no. 1: Dead Zone
Right after buying it, I recognized a huge dead zone at the center of the X axis of the yoke itself (about 8-10 degrees in both directions). There was no way to do an approach, let alone landing, in a precise and controlled manner. After doing quite a lot of research on several forums and other platforms (see example links above), it became clear that this was not a problem with one faulty unit but a general issue with the hardware choices Logitech makes for the yoke. The controller used to register movements via the potentiometers is shit or badly calibrated or whatever, and there’s no real fix to mitigate the issue permanently. At that point I should have sent this thing back to the dealer asking for a refund.
But stupid me didn’t, my reasoning was this: Simply getting a replacement unit for the whole system won’t fix the issue at hand. I found videos which describe ways to make adjustments with third party parts. Since I’ve got experience with soldering irons and building simple electronics stuff, I figured – what the hell – it’ll be cheaper for me to just get a replacement for the controller which doesn’t work properly, instead of paying more than double for the next best yoke out there.
Issue no. 2: Centering springs
The springs installed to recenter the yoke are way too stiff and there is a really bad detent in the center position. Trying to make very small adjustments around the X or Y axis is nigh impossible. Also, there’s a lot of friction on the pitch axis which makes it kind of sticky. Precision flying gets even harder.
So on top of the dead zone issue you also have a problem moving the yoke in a reasonably smooth manner. The centering issues seem to be a really stupid design decision, which Logitech of course would never admit. Technically, the yoke does work. No matter how bad – it’s doing somehow what the box says. So the Logitech support would not consider precision issues to be an actual defect, it’s a “subjective” thing, an opinion rather than a fact. You can either try to live with it, fix it or send it back. Silly me thought: Oh this is probably gonna be easy to fix, save yourself the hassle to deal with the aggravating chatbot based support system of a corp, and get shit done. It was easy to fix. But, again, in hindsight I shoulda just returned this junk, to make a point.
Fixing issues no. 1 and 2
The picture shows fixes to the problems I applied to my yoke. If you click the pic to zoom in, you’ll notice a blue electronics board at the top left, which is a replacement controller from Leo Bodnar, recognizing the inputs from the X and Y axis of the yoke. Considering its size and minor complexity, someone’s making a nice buck selling these. But buying this is still cheaper than ordering a more expensive yoke.
The addon controller actually shows up as an entirely new gaming device “BU0836A” on Windows onto which I can map whatever axis I want. It’s got a USB connection which can simply be hooked up to one of the USB sockets the yoke has built in.
You’ll also notice some black rubber bands in the middle. They are the replacement for the springs. Using these simple and cheap rubber bands I get a whole lot smoother centering and movement on all axis and no noticeable detent, which means precision flying is a lot easier. It needs a bit of trial and error to get it right. But once you did, it’s perfect. You can get rubber bands like these on the internet for a few bucks.
Last but not least I removed an unnecessary plastic part belonging to the spring mechanism, which was wrapped around the metal rod in the center. The problem with the increased friction and stickiness immediately went away.
So far I’ve spent 60 additional bucks for the replacement parts, so the total for the yoke is around 230 EUR currently. Still cheaper than a Honeycomb or Turtle Beach set.
How to do this?
It’s actually fairly easy to make all of these improvements. There’s a video which describes in detail what to do. But you should have at least a little bit of experience with a soldering iron, there’s no way around this. Only my rubber band fix was a slightly different approach.
Considering that the video above is – at the time of this writing – 8 years old, and my brand new yoke still has the exact same issues from a decade ago, you can’t help but wonder what the fuck is wrong with the Logitech management that they don’t make adjustments. These adjustments are minimal, they’d probably cost them less than a dime and it would show at least a little appreciation for the community who is debugging the mistakes Logitech makes.
Logitech used to have cool products. I still have a MX510 mouse from way back when, which still works perfectly. I’ve still got a G25 wheel from almost 20 years ago which looks like shit because it’s old and I and my kids used it a lot. But the precision, force feedback motors and mechanics are still perfect. They used to build stuff that would last a long time. But not anymore. Bought a G-something keyboard a couple years ago, space key switch broke after a couple weeks of use. Bought 2 ergonomic mice (MX verticals for the office), the button switches were done after about 2 years, right after the guarantee period ended, of course.
And now this joke of a yoke. I’m done with Logitech, I can tell you this much, and I do suspect that there are a significant amount of ex-customers who are as well. Anyway. I’m getting carried away…
Issue no. 3: Throttle quadrant
The one part that was still working properly up to this point, was the throttle.
Alas, it wasn’t meant to last: To add insult to injury, the sensors which recognize the movement of the levers went berzerk. It’s hard to describe so I made a video:
Notice that it’s not only the axis which start to missfire but also all buttons of the entire yoke system. Which is hilarious, considering that the problem obviously are only the potentiometers of the levers, nothing else.
Another round of research shows that, again, I’m not an isolated case of bad luck. The problem seems to be a result of another possible major design flaw which hasn’t been addressed in over a decade: a lack of dust protection for the delicate sensors. But if you’re willing to take apart your unit to clean it up, it might work properly again.
Haven’t done that yet, but I’ll keep you posted. And I’ll try to think of an idea to reduce the amount of dirt that can enter the throttle quandrant. We’ll see…
Update
Haven’t repaired the throttle and won’t ever, because once I started taking it apart I found more design stupidity which makes it very hard to even disassemble the necessary components. Reaching the screws is one problem, disconnecting the cables is another (it’s very hard to do on my unit without actually damaging the connectors, because they’re sitting ultra tight on the sockets).
Too tedious, considering that I’d have to repeat this process every couple of weeks. I just don’t care anymore, since my cockpit Frankenstein consisting of the modded yoke from above and Thrustmaster components (throttle + pedals) works well for now.
End of my story with Logitech.
To get back to the original point this post is trying to make:
Save up another 200 bucks and buy something decent, or be prepared to suffer and/or tinker. That simple.