One page for the whole set
HOTAS stands for hands on throttle and stick: a joystick for your right hand, a throttle for your left, often rudder pedals for your feet, each covered in buttons and hat switches so you never let go. To a browser, each part is a separate game controller. This page shows all of them together: the device list at the top, one hat rose per hat switch, and one button grid per device.
A test plan for a HOTAS
- Connect everything and wake each device. Move or press something on each part: browsers only list a device after it has sent input.
- Pick the stick. The tester picks the device that looks like a joystick; change it in the Stick device menu if needed. The twist and the throttle can be on any device: press Find and move the control.
- Buttons and hats. Work through every button on every device, and push each hat into all 8 directions. Thrustmaster’s T.16000M FCS HOTAS, for example, has 30 buttons and 2 hats across stick and throttle (Thrustmaster); the report counts them per device.
- Centre and range for the stick.
- Axis smoothness for the throttle levers, rudder pedals, toe brakes, sliders and rotaries, one at a time.
Big button counts
Some throttles and sticks report more than 32 buttons. Chrome and Edge only pass on the first 32 per device (Chromium source), and the tester says so when a device hits that limit; Firefox shows the rest. Each device’s grid numbers buttons from 1, as games and Windows’ game controller settings do, so a faulty button is easy to find in your bindings.