The best off the shelf money can buy! That does mean expensive but well worth it!.	Pretty much has market share... the most common.
Another market share product with very good reports.	Suncom Products are also top rated by many reviews.
Steve's Home Made Custom Flight Controls!	Additional Important manufacturers are: Microsoft Logitech. Most solid and expensive joysticks can be found at Thrustmaster. Very popular for action games. The F16-FLCS and the F16-TQS are the best Stick and Throttle on the market with tons of programmable buttons. But not very realistic to flight a 737 or a Cessna.....

Joysticks
Digital sticks are available like the Sidewinder line from Microsoft. Beware that the normal version of the Sidewinder (to be connected to your sound-/gamecard) will not work with any pedals!!!
Note: The new USB version of the digital sticks however will work with pedals.

Force Feedback
Force Feedback means that the program (FS98) send a signal back to the joystick. If you are using a special Force Feedback joystick you will feel somewhat of a response of the aircraft you are flying.

Important: You can't use the current Force Feedback controllers (CH and Microsoft) in combination with separate rudder pedals or throttles. The sticks soft- and hardware just can't handle this at this moment! I don't know if the USB Force Feedback Joysticks will work with Pedals. Probably they do! Please inform me if you know the answer!

CH products already offers the CH Force FX ;this one is FS98 compatible using the latest Force FX DirectX 5 driver. You can get it on the force feedback homepage.

New (released just before Christmas 1998) is the Logitech WingMan Force. More stable then the SideWinder FF and with 9 programmable buttons.

BTW: If you are using a SideWinder joystick you are advised to use the Sidewinder Game Device Software. This makes easy to customize your buttons for different games. You can search for it on the Microsoft homepage. Current version is 3.0.

Yokes

For Civil Flying the $100 Virtual Pilot Pro (left) by CHProducts is a must have. An advanced flight yoke, the Virtual Pilot Pro comes with six fire buttons and two 4-way switches for the ultimate in virtual flying.

CH products released the middle one in March 1999. For sale in the USA for about $99.

The right one is a $500 professional trainer Yoke made by Cirrus. I am sure it will feel like $500.....It's fully FS98 compatible.

Pedals

Most professional is the Cirrus Rudder (the left one) but this one is expensive ($500) It even has toe brakes for gas and brake functions. The Thrustmaster Elite Rudder Control System is the best second. Where the CH Pedals (right) need to be activated like a car pedal (up and down) the Thrustmaster pedals need a coordinated forward/backward action of the feet. This makes the Thrustmaster pedal unusable for car racing.

Panels

As a replacement of the keyboard a few companies will offer a panel, making command much easier and a bit more realistic. Unknown is the $150 Programmable Active Link (PAL) by Cirrus (picture).

Similar is the $180 Aerosoft Flightboard. The unit has 128 fs98 functions, each of which requires one press to activate.