Flight Simulator controls - need advice

I use CH Products. I have their FighterStick and Pro Throttle, but they make Flight Sim Yokes, Throttle Quadrants, pedals, and joysticks for real planes.

http://www.chproducts.com/retail/index.html

Store;
http://www.chproducts.com/shop/usb.html

Anyways, I've NEVER had one one fail on me and they're super precise compared to the cheaper sticks. They're plastic, but feel solid to used and as noted are very durable.

I also have a Track IR 5 which tracks my head movement; so for flight sims I can literally look around the cockpit; it works for racing sims also.

http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/03-enhanced-games/enhanced-games-all.html

Depending on the sim, some support 6 degrees of head tracking and it can make a world of difference.

I've had my CH product yoke and pedals for years. Never had a problem.

Everything I've read about flight sticks, yokes, and any other flight sim related product points to CH Products stuff as being top of the line for prosumers.

As for programs, I've also read that X-Plane is more realistic, control wise, than Flight Simulator X. I'm not a pilot, but I chose X-Plane for that reason. Excluding X-Plane 10, because I haven't tried it, I'd say Flight Simulator X has better graphics than X-Plane 9.

Give your thread some time for more opinions. There was another thread a while back about X-Plane, that you can search for, where actual pilots were chiming in with their thoughts.

I'm a fan of CH Products as well. Well built, silky smooth - I don't think you can go wrong there.

To Stallion10 - there are already some good X-Plane vs. MSFS threads. To sum up my opinion, I think X-Plane has the better flight model, but I also believe that people make too big a deal about that. It seems that a lot of big time simmers like to fly the airliners, and IMO, in that case the flight model is largely irrelevant. Flying an airliner is about managing systems, not flying an airplane. If your buddy is interested in tooling around in a J-3 Cub or a helicopter, I think X-Plane is the way to go. But when it comes to airliners, MSFS has some high end add-ons that I'm not sure X-Plane can match. Avro707 can tell you more in that regard - the stuff he's posted on here is very impressive.

I use CH Products as well. I have a stick, yoke and pedals. All work great and have never had a problem with them.

FWIW, MSFS doesn't run on OS X and X-Plane does.

I have played a lot with X-Plane 9, albeit with just a joystick. But as already stated, I only fly airliners, and that is learning to fly using the Auto Pilot so I don't really miss a yoke and/or pedals. Too much bother to install them and remove them when done.
Installing X-Plane is half the work. You need to pay X-Plane.org website a visit.
Installing scenery add-ons, more planes, useful plug ins, etc. make "playing" the X-Plane sim much more fun.

I also own X-Plane 10. The 8 DL DVD's arrived a few days ago, and have started to play around in that too. There are still quite a few bugs, and using the ATC can be frustrating at times.
The grfx are very nice, especially if your hardware can support "HDR" rendering (a new and fast grfx card).
Even though X-Plane 10 is a work in progress, it is the way to go if your Mac can handle it.

Does trackir work on the Mac? I saw requests for compatibility on the trackir forums, but maybe it will work by some unofficial drivers?