Best Rudder Pedals for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

It’s somewhat surprising perhaps that we don’t have more mainstream peripherals for Flight Simulators as when you tot them all up there are a fair few out there and the market is pretty rich pickings for selling peripherals to. These pedals from Logitech / Saitek are among the most popular of what’s on offer if you don’t want to check out the specialist manufacturers and fit together nicely with the yoke and throttle quadrant set up from the same stable.

The pedals are sturdy, weighing in at a little over 5llbs which means they won’t easily be kicked around under your desk. A large tension wheel in the center is a nice touch that allows you to, well increase the tension obviously enough, so you can tighten things up if you are a bit of a kicker and want to reduce the movement a little.

They also self-center when you remove your feet, and the little raised back at the rear of the footplate makes meeting your trotters in the correct position easy. They look a bit like the devices they used to use to measure kids feet in shoe shops but they work remarkably well in every flight sim we tested them in, including Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

The Pro Pedals from CH Products are a flashback to when flight sims on the PC game with 500-page manuals. They wouldn’t look out of place with a serial connector on them rather than a USB plug. They operate in a slightly different way to the Logitech ones with the pedals moving back and forth along sliding tracks.

They are almost four times lighter than the Logitech pedals but the base remains remarkably solid. These days the Pro pedals can be picked up considerably cheaper than other options here but still perform admirably. While your grandfather might mistake them for a footrest that should be placed in front of his armchair, once they are under the desk and in use you are going to notice a great improvement in the realism of your virtual flying.

Again coming in the “not exactly cheap for something you can’t use with everything” bracket are these great pedals from another stalwart of flight swimming – Thrustmaster. In many ways, the Thrustmaster T.Flight Rudder Pedals are the best pedals here. Featuring a similar weight to the Logitech ones, great looking (for a set of flight pedals), smooth movement, and a dual-rail aluminum sliding system that allows each pedal to also have its own brake assigned means you can have multiple toe brakes, these are perhaps the most flexible pedals on this page.

As with most flight sim peripherals at the moment they can be pretty difficult to get hold of but perseverance will be your friend and constantly rechecking will eventually snare you a set for your flight simulation setup.

Do you need to add them to your flight simulator set-up? Of course, you do. It’s all about the realism baby!

One thing to note, these aren’t compatible with anything older than Windows Vista and they don’t work on a Mac, but let’s face it, you probably aren’t bothered by either of those caveats.