These are my first impressions of the BRD-DS against my other sticks the VKB Gunfighter and the TM Warthog. These are just my opinions. Your mileage may vary...
I put in my order for this back in the Feb or March and because my Warthog was annoying me with its "notch" effect and because Baur was having some production delays I picked up a VKB Gunfighter a couple of months ago. So here is my general take on all three...
Precision and solid feel - The BRD-DS hands down the best for smooth slop-free motion. It has beautiful progressive load from the perfectly scaled cams. The Gunfighter is good but still seems to have very subtle transition points and wants to favor the side that doesn't have the spring. The Warthog had big transition points and seemed to want to track along a dog-leg course when trying to balance pitch and roll.
The build quality of the BRD-DS is the best of the three. It just reeks quality and ruggedness. Nothing cheap here, it feels like a $1500 piece of FAA certified gear. The KG13A grip is a precision work of art. The Gunfighter I have to admit made me feel like I might break it. The Warthog lasted me 7 years without any failures, what else can be said.
The BRD has just four map-able buttons, I had to move some more functions to the thottle. It cals in Windows but I understand you can use the TM TARGET software with it as the PC board is made to work with the Warthog. I can't get TARGET to load in WIN 10 so I never tried it. The Windows cal works fine. The VKB software is the best with a vast array of tools I'll never need. It has 12 buttons with the bomb release button doubling as a hat switch. TARGET never worked so I'll pass on that assessment.
Dealing with Baur was great, he always let me know what was going on with the order. His English is a lot better than my Russian and by keeping things simple and a with little help from Google Translate comms were no issue at all. I paid him through Paypal and he shipped Russia Post to South Korea with no issues whatsoever. It got here in a week while Korea was in the midst of major Thanksgiving holidays.
The DS is the baby brother to the N. It fits my Obutto just about perfectly- maybe an inch higher than the VKB but it is not noticeable. The throw is longer and the spring load is substantially heavier than the 30 pounders I had on the VKB. The stick forces seems better harmonized than the VKB with my MFG rudders buts sometimes I'm tempted to grab it with both hands in a hard pull up. Its probable this could be remedied with the 50 # springs in the VKB but the shorter throw range may make that a too much of a struggle. Its very comfortable and I don't get any fatigue in hour-long flights.
Bottom line this is the best fighting stick I have has since I stopped using the MS Sidewinder many years ago. BAUR packed it with spare cams, springs and buttons, so I think this is going to be my go-to stick for a long time. You can tell BAUR is a perfectionist and a lot of thought went into this piece of equipment.
Skud
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