Cockpits & Setups

Flight Simulator Peripherals Beyond Stick and Throttle

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Flight simulator peripherals cover everything beyond your core stick, yoke, or throttle: switch panels, GPS and navigation bezels, trim wheels, and autopilot control panels. They're the layer that turns a basic PC setup into something closer to a real instrument panel, and they're worth buying once you already know your primary controller is right.

Switch panels handle the controls you touch every flight

Logitech's G Saitek Pro Flight Switch Panel is a documented example built around the systems switches most GA aircraft share: per Logitech's own spec sheet, it has a top row for master battery, master alternator, avionics master, fuel pump, de-ice, and pitot heat, a bottom row covering cowl, panel, beacon, nav/strobe, taxi, landing, and gear controls, and a 5-position rotary switch for the magnetos. It connects over USB 2.0 and includes LED indicator lights so you can see switch states at a glance.

Autopilot and trim panels speed up in-flight changes

Logitech's companion Pro Flight Multi Panel adds autopilot mode controls, an auto-throttle switch, a flap handle, and a dedicated elevator trim wheel, per Logitech's own product description — the trim wheel is built with resistance tuned to make it easier to hold a specific pitch attitude than trimming through a mouse-clicked in-sim control. For airliner-style flying instead of GA, GoFlight's GF-MCP Pro takes a different approach: it's modeled directly on a Boeing 737NG mode control panel, with heading, altitude, speed, and course selector knobs, and connects over USB as a plug-and-play device, per GoFlight's own documentation.

GPS and nav bezels replicate a specific real instrument

RealSimGear's GNS530 is a physical replica of the Garmin GNS 530, a GPS/nav unit common in real GA aircraft. Per RealSimGear's own listing, it has a 5-inch LCD screen that displays your sim's in-cockpit GNS 530 pop-out, with functional knobs and tactile buttons that replicate the real unit's controls, and it connects to your PC over HDMI, DisplayPort, or DVI rather than USB alone. This is a narrower, more specialized purchase than a general switch panel — it only makes sense if the aircraft you fly actually has a GNS 530 or GNS 430-style stack.

Monitor mounts and cockpit frames come later, not first

Once you're running a stick or yoke, a throttle, pedals, and one or more panels at once, desk space and cable management get harder to ignore. Dedicated monitor stands built for sim rigs, from brands like Trak Racer and SimFab, mount a second or third display directly to your cockpit structure or to a freestanding base rather than a standard desk arm, which keeps a heavy ultrawide or multi-monitor array stable during hands-on flying instead of drifting or wobbling on a clamp built for office use. Integrated mounts that bolt straight to an aluminum-profile cockpit frame tend to hold steadier than a separate freestanding stand next to the desk, since there's no flex in a separate connection point — but a freestanding stand is the safer choice if you don't already own a cockpit frame or don't want your monitor setup tied to one.

This is deliberately a later purchase. A monitor mount or full cockpit frame is built around the specific hardware you're already committed to — swap your throttle quadrant or add pedals later and you may need to reposition or re-mount everything anyway. Buying the frame first, before your stick, throttle, and panel choices are settled, is one of the more expensive mistakes a new sim builder can make.

Wiring more peripherals means more USB devices to manage

Every panel and bezel covered here connects as its own device — a switch panel, a multi panel, and a GPS bezel add up to three additional connections beyond your stick or yoke and throttle. That's rarely a bandwidth problem, since panels send small, infrequent control signals rather than continuous data, but it is a power and cable-management problem once you're running five or six devices off one machine. A powered USB hub, rather than daisy-chaining panels off an unpowered one, is the more reliable way to add peripherals one at a time without devices dropping out when the simulator starts up and polls everything at once. The airplane simulator controls guide linked below covers this wiring problem in more depth, including axis-specific setup, which doesn't apply to most panels since they're built around discrete switches and buttons rather than continuous analog axes.

Buying peripherals for how you actually fly

Someone who flies mostly GA trainers gets the most out of a switch panel and, if the aircraft has one, a matching GPS bezel — those two cover almost everything a small single-engine cockpit asks you to reach for during a flight. Someone flying mostly airliners gets more value from an MCP-style autopilot panel, since airliner flying leans heavily on autopilot mode changes (altitude, heading, speed) that a GA-style switch panel doesn't cover at all. Someone flying a mix of both ends up needing separate panels for each category, since a GA switch panel's magneto and fuel-pump switches don't map onto a jet, and an airliner MCP panel's mode-select knobs don't map onto a Cessna.

Whichever category fits you, buying the panel that matches your aircraft type beats buying the most fully-featured panel available, since a panel with autopilot modes and switches for an aircraft you don't fly just sits unused on the desk.

How peripherals fit into a full setup

None of these peripherals replace your primary stick, yoke, or throttle — they sit alongside it. A practical buying order is a general switch panel first, since it covers controls used on nearly every flight regardless of aircraft type, then an aircraft-specific add-on like a GPS bezel or airliner MCP panel once you've settled on the kind of flying you do most. Mounting hardware and cockpit frames come last, after you know exactly which peripherals you're keeping long-term.

Amazon: Logitech G Saitek Pro Flight Switch Panel Logitech G Saitek Pro Flight Switch Panel. Amazon: Logitech G Saitek Pro Flight Multi Panel Logitech G Saitek Pro Flight Multi Panel. Amazon: RealSimGear GNS530 RealSimGear GNS530. GoFlight GF-MCP Pro (not currently sold on Amazon under this name).

Who this is for

Built for someone who already has a stick, yoke, or throttle set up and wants to know what to add next, and in what order, rather than someone still choosing their primary controller.