What Are They?

The Orion 2 marks the second iteration of the popular Orion throttles base from WINWING. The Orion 2 brings about a redesigned interface, more configurability, adjustable afterburner detents a whole lot more.

Key Features

  • 16-bit high-resolution Hall contactless sensors on the throttle
  • High strength aluminium alloy and steel components
  • Compatibility with several other WINWING throttle grips
  • Adjustable detents covering off a variety of different use cases

About The Author:

Reviewer: Sean

Sean is a pilot with over two decades of experience in aviation and senior technology roles within Airlines and Non-Profit sectors. He’s a lifelong flight simmer and avid VR user, blending his passion for flying with cutting-edge technology. From cockpit to virtual skies, Sean loves all things Tech and Aviation.

Unboxing and Setup

As WINWING has an Australian distributor, this device arrived within 7 days which looks to be consistent with products that have been sent before. The items are well packaged and has arrived again without damage.

Most items are either wrapped in plastic sunken in foam or heavily sunken in foam within their own box to further protect them. While I’m not a fan of boxes within boxes due to the waste, it does provide great protection to these devices.

Box Contents:

  • Throttle Body without throttle handles
  • 4 x suction cups for securing the unit to a flat desk/tabletop
  • Tools
  • Small clamp for the USB cable
  • USB Type B to Type A Cable

Note – As is the standard with WINWING, no manual is included. These can be found on their Website > Download Center > Download.

Manual

The PDF manual obtained from their website is consistent with previous manuals for other products. It’s functional, straightforward and covers off the basics of the device. This manual however looks like a work in progress with a few pages missing information.

WINWING Throttle Base Manual 1
WINWING Throttle Base Manual
WINWING Throttle Base Manual
WINWING Throttle Base Manual 2

Construction And Materials

The main throttle body is made up of 2 parts: a main plastic exterior comprising the frame and mounting points for securing to a cockpit. The second section looks to be a top plate made up of several laser etched panels stuck down into quadrants. The top is secured to the base by long hex bolts that mate with nuts on the opposite side of the devices.

On the underside several screws are visible however not all were completely flush with the base of the unit which raised one side of the unit when placed on a completely flat surface. Very minor, perhaps 0.2 – 0.3mm which would not be an issue once the unit is either secured with screws or slightly raised by use of the suction cups.

Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base
Winwing Throttle Base

Unlike some other throttles in this market, the base that you mount to a cockpit with bolts/screws is plastic with 4 x 6.3mm diameter holes being as little as just 3.5mm from the edge of the plastic. Liberal force being applied when tightening these could lead to cracking the plastic from over tightening. Caution is recommended or if you’re worried, the use of some thin washers could assist here.

4 x 4mm diameter counter-sunk holes available also however given their position to the left side could mean they’re for something else other than mounting.

Without handles, the unit weighs in at 1.5kg/3.32lbs and has dimensions of 272 x 165 x 93mm.

As these throttles would be mounted to a Trak Racer T160S flight simulator cockpit, I was keen to get them bolted up to the throttle plate. As this unit has a protruding small plastic box coming out from the frame on the top and bottom (for additional addons), access is limited to two of the holes where I would normally drop a hex bolt down and secure with a nut underneath, I had to reverse the approach and had the nut on top which wasn’t a big deal.

Winwing throttles base measurments

Throttle Features

  • 4 x Dual Stage Switches
  • 4 x 3-Stage Switches
  • 3 x Single Press Switches
  • 1 x 3 Step Switch (With Press Gear)
  • 4 x Encoders (Press/Axis)
  • 2 x AA/AG Programmable Backlight Switches
  • 2 x Hi-Res Hall Thumbwheels

Both throttle stalks and sliders are both made of cast aluminium, capable of 80 degrees of motion through the use of 16-bit hall contact-less sensors.

All rotary knobs can be continually rotated with the exception of the Wing Fold rotary knob which is a 3-position knob with push button.

Setup and Configuration

Like many other WINWING products, these work best when partnered with WINWING’s application called SimAppPro. Upon starting the application, I was greeted by a message that a firmware update was available and that I should update. As what has become WINWING custom, the reminder to pull out all other USB devices with the exception of a keyboard and mouse was read and promptly but respectfully ignored. Going rogue this time paid off and without issue, my throttles were updated to the latest version.

While SimAppPro won’t be winning best UI design of the year award anytime soon, the application is functional, just not sexy. Buttons being slightly cutoff, formatting errors and text not easily read are all part of the experience when using the application. However, the application works as intended and I appreciated the level of configuration available.

Backwards compatibility and versatility are clearly front of mind throughout the design of these products, several options are available for button adjustment such as the removal of 3 position switches and lowing the overall 128 button limit into 4 x 32 button mode more suited for games such as Star Citizen, IL2 and BMS.

The buttons all sync up to their appropriate positions in the application and update if moved which also includes any axis’s such as left and right throttles. Calibration is also available and was a task I needed to do to ensure correct axis representation on my left throttle. Upon calibration though, the throttles performed without issue.

When assigning buttons within DCS, you come to appreciate the true 2 and 3 position switches. Each position of the physical switch is a different assignment within DCS. Some bad habits creeped in whilst I was manually assigning within DCS. When the window was up listening for a button to be pushed, I had a tendency to flick the switch I wanted but then flick it back to the original position which is what I used to do with my old Thurstmaster joystick. As this stick has a switch position for each position, A few buttons ended up reversed but easily fixed.

WINWING Firmware Update
WINWING Throttle Mapping
WINWING Knobs

I did however run into a challenge with the HDG (Heading) and CRS (Course) rotary encoder knobs. Each movement either CCW or CW registers in DCS as a button which is what I expected. However, rotating them during flight did move the physical switch in the cockpit but did not move the Heading Bug or Course. Given how quickly the buttons are pressed by rotating the knobs, I suspected it was just too fast for DCS to register the input.

Returning to SimAppPro to investigate I was happy to see that configuration options are available for the rotary encoders to adjust acceleration and interval (in milliseconds) for each click of the encoder. While 10 was its default option, adjusting it to 50ms started to move the heading in the aircraft. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get this to work properly. It was either a case of the heading bug not moving at all or what looked like uncommanded heading changes whereby adjusting the time interval to a higher number seemed to que up and the heading bug and it would still turn even when I’d stopped twisting the heading knob. It was a similar problem for the CRS (course) knob.

In the end I chose to not use those knobs for their intended purposes and made them illumination knobs for the various panels to light up in the cockpit of the hornet.

The unit is backlit across the entire top face and when running WINWING’s application (SimAppPro) can be synchronised to the Aircraft’s cockpit illumination dial.

Within DCS I configured the PANEL LTS (panel lights) encoder knob to the panel lights within the FA18 hornet. However given the rotary knobs are also push buttons, I was able to assign the button as a modifier in DCS and assign the same knob to an additional function such as instrument lights. So, by simply rotating the knob I got panel lights, by pressing the knob in and holding while twisting (not as hard as it might sound) I can adjust the instrument lights. I applied this same theory to the HMD knob which when configured not only controlled the brightness of the Head Mounted Display, but with a modifier, also controlled the Head’s up display. Great design decision in making the rotary encoders also push buttons.

WINWING Backlighting
WINWING Backlighting

Pictured here with the F15EX II Throttle Handles 

Shareable configuration profiles through WINWINGs cloud sharing are available for most of their products including these throttles. Returning to the application’s home and selected Key Binding (What I would call device profiles)

takes you to a menu to select your Device > Simulator > Aircraft to where you will be presented with other customers profiles that have been shared with the community.

The menu within the cloud file section easily allows you to identify the popular profiles, who made them and a small note on what is contained in that profile. I’ve seen something similar in other applications such as rK Apps FSRealistic and SimHaptic programs for other flight simulators and it’s a great way to try other profiles options before diving into assignments yourself.

One note here that caught me off guard was that downloading and running a cloud config overwrites any assignment you might have already completed for that device on that aircraft. In my case I’d fooled around a little in the FA18 Hornet and done about 10 assignments with the WINWING throttles before investigating the cloud service. Upon downloading and running a file I quickly realised that no back up had been done and I’d lost the small amount of configuration I’d completed. The file specifically overridden for me was located in “Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\Input\FA-18C_hornet\joystick” as I was configuring the Hornet.

WINWING Throttle Config

Note, these configuration files once run overwrite your DCS configuration file for that device on the selected airframe. All previous assignments won’t be backed up prior and will be lost. 

How do they feel and fly?

The build quality in these translates into the feel you get when using the throttle base. All metal switches feel solid, firm to switch and feel up to the task of repeated abuse of its lifetime. The 4 encoder knobs have unlimited rotation and contain a push button allowing you to press down on them, adding yet another button and options for the encoders.

The motion of the two throttle stalks is smooth and with has adjustable tension taking them from being very light to needing quite a bit of force to move. The illuminated A/G and A/A buttons are also a nice touch although feel a little berried in the middle of the unit once you put a large throttle handle on such as the F15EX handles.

I did run into issues with the two “thumbwheels,” which are tall and highly sensitive to movement. They have a stalk that stands nearly 30mm above the throttle surface and a very soft centre detent which is easily missed when moving them whilst in VR. During testing, particularly in VR, they proved to be a constant annoyance. It was easy to accidentally bump them when trying to reach the Air to Ground or Air to Air buttons, or even when simply grabbing the right throttle.

During testing I had the bottom one (left in picture below) setup for zoom as it was the closest and easy to reach for me, but it was quickly removed and set to nothing in favour of the one located further away. I see mods already exist for changing these out for people lucky enough to have access to a 3D Printer. This is definitely an area I believe could be easily improved with a simple redesign.

Winwing Throttle Base

Conclusion

Quality and configurability are common traits of the WINWING Orion 2 throttle base. Anyone coming from other units such as the Thrustmaster Warthog will appreciate the additional buttons, true 3 position switches and the overall sturdy construction of this peripheral. Matched with handles such as those of the F15 EX II and you will have a serious unit cable of tackling the most demanding aircraft for joystick assignments.

While an impressive unit, there are several items that could be worked on for future revisions. The large thumbwheels need a redesign, their large height and light touch resulted in too many accidental bumps and left me changing them to be unconfigured. Something as simple as no stalk but rather a grooved wheel with a simple notch for centre would easily suffice.

Several switches along the top of the unit control functions like Hook, Gear, and Parking Brake, all featuring identical switch heads. This makes it difficult to identify the switches by touch alone, especially if you’re not looking directly at your hand. Different switch heads that can be easily memorized would greatly assist those of us who fly in VR.

Finally, while not a specific problem associated with the throttles alone, the SimAppPro cloud configurations could be enhanced to ensure users assignments are backed up prior to running any downloaded configs. I also didn’t see an option to stop running a downloaded and previously ran cloud config file. You simply click Run on another profile to stop using the current.

Big improvement, some room to improve, but not bad 7/10


Pros

  • Solid construction, very much like the redesign over the original Orion throttle base
  • Syncing the lighting to the cockpit of your aircraft is a great feature and really adds to the immersion
  • The rotary encoders that allow unlimited rotation are also push buttons, this opens up more functionality.

Cons

  • The thumbwheels, long handles, easy to move and their placement just get in the way. Hoping for an Orion 3 with these redesigned, there is no need to have such a long stalk on these.
  • While I appreciate the backlit A/G and A/A buttons, they can be difficult to press depending on the position of the throttle and thumbwheels.
  • 4 switches across the top of the unit are all the same switch head type, whilst in VR it would be nice if these all had a different head so you could feel the type rather than trying to remember which switch does what in its location.