I’ve known Thrustmaster products for years (decades, actually). Granted, I am not their biggest user, but I know the quality of what they produce, and I have tried a lot of their joysticks and pedals throughout the years.
It’s one of those brands that I’d say every simmer knows of and their quality is recognized.
It’s also a brand I’ve been reaching out to and trying to convince to make something for the helicopter flight simulation folks. I wouldn’t go as far as asking them to do something specific to start with (like collectives, for example – although I would love to), but, at least, it would be nice if we could have a nice hybrid joystick or joystick base.
Last year (2023), during FlightSimExpo, Thrustmaster invited me to an event, where they were showing a prototype for a new base. I couldn’t explore it a lot but I liked the feeling of it and I liked what the folks from Thrustmaster were hinting at.
Fast forward to this year, and we now have the Thrustmaster AVA Base in the market.
A few things caught my eye while checking out the official website: the possibility to customize the base by changing springs, cams, and deflection angle, for example. Which allows us to make it more “helicopter-friendly".
Oh yeah.
I couldn’t wait to try it out.
Installation
There's not a lot to say here. Attach the cable to the joystick, connect it to your computer and off you go!
Done!
First contact
The Thrustmaster AVA Base comes nicely packaged, which is normal for a Thrustmaster product. Everything we need is included, of course.
The stick comes preinstalled with a set of springs, cams, and one of the deflection masks. Inside the box we get 2 other deflection masks, 2 spring kits (2 springs per kit), a set of 2 cams, a USB-2/USB-C cable, and an Alen key. Plus, the base of course.
Note that the base is just that: the base. You will need to purchase a grip if you don’t have one already. If you own a Warthog or an F-18 stick, for example, you’re all set.
Above: USB-C socket.
For this review, Thrustmaster sent me an F-18 grip.
The base feels sturdy. Heavy! And there’s a very good reason for that, of course: the interior is all made of metal, as is the top cover – a beautiful, brushed metal. The sides are made of great-quality plastic.
I’ve opened the joystick to take a look inside and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a gorgeous piece of engineering.
I closed the joystick and tried it all, with everything default.
First flight
Since I didn’t change anything, I knew the first flight would be a bit challenging. Having the spring fighting my hand would make things harder and I was ready for it.
Surprisingly, though, the joystick was not too hard and, although the challenge was there, I don’t think it’s completely impossible to use the joystick for helicopters, even with the springs on.
I spent about thirty minutes flying around and I could feel my wrist getting tired, especially as I started to increase my slow and low maneuvers, but it was doable.
The joystick responded very well, which isn’t surprising, considering the usual quality of Thrustmaster products.
The company also sent me the AVA Plate, which was a blessing, especially because the springs were on, of course. With the Plate, the stick was pretty solid. Installing the plate was also pretty, easy, by the way. It was something I did in 5 minutes. No biggie here.
It was time to…
… “helicopterize” it
You know what that means, right?
I made sure to use a linear cam, removed the springs, and made sure everything worked smoothly.
Above: accessing the interior is easy. Just remove 4 screws.
Funny enough, I realized I didn’t have to worry about the cams since once we remove the springs, the parts that come in contact with the cams get loose and won’t contact the cams anymore.
Speaking of which, that means that one of those parts actually drops and drags itself on the bottom part of the joystick as we move the stick around, so I had to remove it.
Now for the bad news: the stick falls to the side once the springs come off.
And we have no way to hold it in place. The AVA Base does not have a clutch or a friction system that helps us keep the stick in place and that means that it drops to the side and we will need to keep our hand on the stick the whole time, otherwise, our flights will be very short ones.
It’s a trade-off. It will make the joystick a lot easier to use but, on the other hand, we have no way of letting the stick go as we’re flying around.
Another thing that I did – and I love that Thrustmaster added this – was to change the “mask” of the base, which limits the angle or travel of the stick. The default mask allows for a 43 degree deflection. The smaller one, for a 30 degree deflection.
One could argue that the bigger deflection would work better because you would have more fine tuning while moving the stick but the 30 degree one works great for me since I never reach that far anyway. I have to say that this is mostly a matter of personal preference.
Subsequent flights
Once I got everything up to my needs, I loaded up the first sim, which was Microsoft Flight Simulator, and I went for a flight.
The joystick behaved flawlessly and controlling it was a lot easier and much better than with the spring. The thing that I struggled a bit with was the fact that I was using the joystick on my desk and that meant my hand was positioned higher. I placed my hand on the base and used my fingers to control the stick, which made it harder for me to access the top of the stick and use the buttons, hats, etc.
It was doable, but not comfortable. I think that if the stick was placed between my legs and lower, it would work a lot better since I could rest my arm on my leg, just like helicopter pilots do in real life.
This is not an issue with the joystick, mind you, but rather a tip for you if you are looking into the AVA Base, and want to remove the springs and use it for helicopters. I highly recommend you get a mount or find any other way to place it in a better position. I don’t think using it on a desk will make it a great experience in the long run.
It was a bit hard for me during the weeks I tried it.
I then tried the Base with X-Plane, DCS, and Aerofly. It worked as expected. There’s really not much more to say here.
Conclusion (and a couple of wishes)
I consider the Thrustmaster AVA Base to be a great step forward for Thrustmaster. The family of products the company has on the market is great, but I always felt that something more customizable was in dire need for the helicopter pilots out there.
Granted, I know a lot of simmers that use Thrustmaster joysticks to fly helicopters with great success but, still, I always believed something better could be done and make the lives of virtual helicopter pilots easier.
The release of something like the AVA Base has been a wish of mine for a long time and it’s great to finally see it becoming a reality. The performance is great and the build quality is exactly like every higher-end Thrustmaster product. You will find no unpleasant surprises.
But… I do have a couple of wishes.
The first thing I’d like Thrustmaster to do would be to add an adjustable clutch or a friction system that would allow us to remove the springs without the joystick falling to the side. Being able to position the grip in a certain position and leave it there would be amazing.
That friction would also help control the stick by preventing over-control. If a joystick is loose, we tend to move it too much and, eventually, get into Pilot-Induced Oscilation (PIO).
The second thing I would like to see would be helicopter grips, like the B8 (the grip used on the Bell 206/407, for example) and/or the one used in the H145, which is a rather popular helicopter nowadays, in sims – especially in MSFS.
The Thrustmaster AVA Base is very nice but I feel like there's just a bit more missing to make it perfect.
