Customer Reviews
superficial quality
I have been using the Cougar for over a year now and have concluded that it is a combination of the best and the worst in consumer products. In the end analysis it is ok for someone who doesn't mind tinkering, modifying and repairing. If it wasn't for the online community I would have thrown my Cougar away a long time ago. These guys are the BEST thing going for the Cougar. Support from the manufacturer is far from acceptable. Now for the good and the bad.
This product has a great feel about it. Largely because it's all metal, heavy and seems durable. The metal, however, is very soft and, consequently, easy to strip threads. The switches and pots are low quality. Replacement pots are only available through the manufacturer as they were specially made. (I think by CTS) The Throttle Quadrant has a speed brake switch which is on in the forward position, off in the middle position and momentary on in the back position. The switch itself is the toggle variety. It is guided by a plastic guide that works well when properly aligned but there is nothing designed into the product to insure alignment. You'll have to fix this yourself or the guide is likely to break. Fortunately the procedure is detailed in Frugals World Cougar forum.
Programmability is a big plus with the Cougar. Again, if you are not up to tinkering and just want to plug and play, look for something else. If you don't mind spending some time with your face in the manual and working through a profile or two you will have incredible flexibility.
The throttle itself is rather sticky through its range of motion and there are two detents for idle and afterburner. All in all it is clunky and I opted to remove the detents. As far as the sticky motion is concerned I have yet to find a way to fix it.
The Cougar is not really a desktop item. Sure it's heavy and you would think it would stay put but it doesn't. It is a lot more enjoyable when anchored to a platform. If you are contemplating this purchase I suggest that you go to and get familiar with http://cougar.frugalsworld.com/. They will be your primary support group and you can get some insight to the problems and soulutions that the rest of us are working through.
Pay special attention to the instructions when loading the software. There seems to be a problem with version 2.04 that damages the throttle pot.
All show, no go
Pros:
1. metal and sturdy (except throttle lever support which is plastic and actually broke on mine). Metal makes for great feel of the stick, much better than any plastic joystick.
2. Vast programming abilities (rivaled only by top competition equipment). This is, IMO, the best thing about the Cougar.
3. Impressive looks and design - a real stunner. Better than any other joystick in this regard.
Cons:
1. Poor gimbal construction. The stick will inevitably develop center play which, in combination with stiff springs, makes the center position feel like a detent - this effectively denies any precision control near the center. A fix for this is available as a 3rd party product, but is costly - almost twice as the Cougar itself.
2. Poor quality potentiometers. With joystick this expensive, HAL (contactless magnetic potentiometers) are the way to go, or at least high quality potentiometers found in competition products. HAL potentimeters for Cougar are also available as a 3rd party product, but are costly (a kit of three is slightly less than 200$).
3. Sticky feel with throttle. The material has quite a difference in friction, which means it is hard to move the throttle, but once you do move it, it is hard to stop it in desired position. No precision here. If the resistance is lowered, the throttle lever falls forward/backward due to its own weight !
Verdict: A wannabe quality product which simply falls short in crucial areas. Requires significant additional costs to make it work as advertised. Definitely not recommended, as there are much better options out there.
A Hobby unto Itself. Softcore Simmers Beware.
For two years I owned a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS, touted as the ultimate flight simmer's controller, and in that time I all but stopped simming. Honestly, in two years I flew perhaps a dozen hours at most. Before the Cougar, I simmed much more--off and on for years--and did so on lousy to middling equipment: bargain-bin trash, a CH Flightstick, and later, a CH Combatstick USB. By then I found myself playing Falcon 4.0 religiously, so when it became "necessary" to pick up a throttle, I passed over the homely CH Pro Throttle and reached for the sexy, uber-F16 controller, the Cougar.
Next to the Cougar, any other controller looks like it came free with a Happy Meal. It's so sleek yet solid and rugged--it's simply gorgeous. You'll find yourself ogling it, polishing it, displaying it, and even fashioning dust covers for it. You'll also appreciate its features, ergonomics and simplicity. The trigger is dual-stage. Every button on the throttle falls under a finger. And that throttle, along with gameport rudder pedals (should you have them), plugs directly into the stick base, forging a single mega-controller with a gazillion buttons and axes, all routed to your PC through a single USB plug. Elegant.
Packaged with the Cougar comes a simmer's dream date: a 183-page manual, your guide to the complex software suite that drives the Cougar. You'll want to take it to bed, curl up under a reading lamp and spend the night with it. But that's where the problems start. It doesn't illuminate; it obfuscates. If the Cougar Reference Manual concerned baseball, chapter one would be "The Infield Fly Rule," and the first page would delve into the Old English etymology of "field." In other words, one must learn Cougar-programming in spite of it. Expect to spend several Saturdays getting nowhere. Expect to procrastinate, and, for the thin-skinned among you, expect to give up. And that's too bad, because the point of owning a Cougar, besides its looks, is to harness its powerful programming features for your own purposes.
Ultimately, though, the Cougar is a piece of hardware, and yes, a great looking one. So how does it feel? In a word, STIFF. As a former (and current) CH user, I found it difficult to make small, discreet motions with the stick and tiring to hold precise bank angles. I also found it tough to move the throttle; to paraphrase another reviewer, it's tough to get it going, and once going, tough to stop on a dime (though to be fair, it's the only throttle I've tried). Then there's the issue of bad potentiometers, a common Cougar complaint. Bad pots mean dead axes, and dirty pots mean "spiking" or sudden input surges. I experienced neither. Yet reading Cougar forums induces a nagging fear that those pots will eventually require replacement, or at least periodic cleaning. That's off-putting, to say the least; I thought the whole point of buying the best is so you don't have to do this. In fact, many a happy Cougar owner does this and more, tackling its shortcomings through third-party upgrades: new potentiometers, softer springs, precision-machined brass gimbals, aluminum switch casings, and so on. These mods require not only cash--lots of it--but time, technical expertise and a modest workshop, complete with soldering iron, multimeter and an assortment of lubricants and cleansers. Even getting the Cougar to work as advertised with CH Products' Pro Pedals Gameport (arguably the standard in analog pedals) takes a rewiring job. Not exactly plug-and-play.
Clearly, there's a type of simmer who revels in this. He's the kind of person who loves to work on his car over the weekend. Personally, I'd rather drive my car and leave repairs to my local mechanic. In the case of the Cougar, unfortunately, that mechanic is you, baby, you! Do yourself a favor and take a personality test before buying one. If you lack the tinkerer temperament, not to mention time (sims take enough time already!), engineering smarts and excess cash, consider looking elsewhere. Or you just might end up doing what I did: nothing. I let my Cougar sit idle until one day I sold it.
