Next Level Racing Flight Seat Pro (NLR-S033)

I spent the better part of 3 days building this and setting up all the peripherals to get it in the best shape possible. It comfortably holds 2 throttles, joystick and F18 MIP all at once...plus I have enough room to store a collective on the side. Cant use it with the throttle in place on the left thigh, but easily taken care of. I wish that could have been thought out a little better when they designed this since helicopter simming is becoming fairly large now.Pro's: Its very comfortable. It sits better than any gaming chair Ive ever used, and Im fairly certain I can game in this thing for a while without getting butt hurt. Took a while to assemble, and man...building this thing was fun in its own right.Con's: After all is said and done, its smaller than I thought it would be.1) I have the seat scooched back all the way, and my rudder pedals are about as far back as they can go. I barely have enough room to fit in to keep my joystick from striking my MIPs.2) You can only fit a joystick in 2 places if you have a MIP installed: on the right side or on the center pedestal with the articulating link. Do not have any room whatsoever for an extension. None. Zero. Put an extension on the Flight Stand Pro and it will sit directly under the MIP. If you use the extension on the Flight Seat Pro, it will strike the MIP if you push the stick forward. With the MIP installed, you have only 4" of forward travel at best.3) The Flight Deck has only one fitting to allow clamping the MIP. The piece that you install for that is only wide enough to fit either 2 MCDs side by side, or the HUD/UFC/AMPCD at once. You have to get creative and go to Home Depot to find spacers to get them to fit. Obviously this was designed prior to the MIP being released and in widespread use, but the fact they attempted to make it work fell flat on its face. Im sorry, but the included spacer should have been another 8" in width to accommodate the whole assembly.4) Had to fabricate a place for a collective to mount. Not a ding on the setup as a whole, but wish that could have been a choice. Didnt have to alter any details to the pit at all to get it to work, just another hassle to deal with.5). And last but not least, there doesnt seem to be any support for Slaw brand rudder pedals to be installed. You will have to figure out a way to get them to fit if you happen to have a set, or just get yourself a HSS drill bit and start drilling some holes. Not a big problem, but not a good problem to have either. Those Slaws are expensive, arent they? Im not really interested in putting a drill bit to a few pieces of expensive hardware just to mount together.I havent really flown in the new seat yet, so I cant quite comment on how truly comfortable it is and Im sure Ill come across more gripes in the future as well, but all in all Im really liking this setup. Really would be perfect if the above mentioned gripes would be dealt with and it will truly be an awesome setup. The limited time I spent in it already makes me wish I had some more free time to play now. Cant wait!

I was originally going to write a point by point review of everything I hate about this chair. With photos. But it would have been too long and nobody would have read it. So, here's the "short" version.Summary: Design is good but WAY WAY overpriced and poorly made. I don't recommend this chair. It's priced at least double what it's worth.Pro: this is the right shape for a flight sim chair. Everybody else sells chairs that are really racing chairs. But you can't move your shoulders properly for operating a HOTAS setup with racing chairs. The side bolsters get in the way.Cons: I think this may have originally been a pretty well designed chair, but on the way to actually getting it manufactured, they turned it to garbage. The hardware fits really poorly. You can't assemble it according to instructions, because the parts don't fit properly. Just a few examples of the MANY problems with this chair:A) Riv-nut fasteners. But the threads in the frame are held in with riv-nuts, which sit proud of the frame, unlike the photos. So nothing lines up properly if you use the side panels. I just left them off. Same problem unfortunately with the casters. Instructions warn you to use the provided rectangular washers to distribute the load so the caster mounts don't fail, but they used riv-nuts that sit proud so the washers don't do anything. The chair was designed for all of those threads to be flush, but they are not.B) Incorrectly-dimensioned fasteners. The center joystick mount has a tilt mechanism using shoulder bolts. The shoulders are supposed to be a pivot point. But the sheet steel is too thin and the holes too large, so when you tighten the shoulder bolts full tight, the center mount still slides forward and back when you use the stick. The screws that hold the chair to the frame, and the screws that mount the seat back to the seat base have heads that are too large, so they don't seat properly in the channel. I had to find my own fasteners for these locations to even complete assembly of the parts.C) Cheap square tube mounts. The square tubes used are paper thin, and they have plastic liners to get the size realtively precise. They have very small range of adjustability, and don't hold very tightly. Where the center joystick mounts to the frame, inexplicably they don't even use riv-nuts, but have the bolts go straight through the frame. This means you have to tighten the bolts so tight that they bend the bracket in to clamp on the (thin) square tube of the frame, just to keep it from being wobbly. The ONE place that using riv-nuts would have really helped, they didn't use them.

Chair is comfortable and does well for flight simulation.

I only have a couple problems with this chair.Center mount for a stick doesn't come up high enoughNotch and seat cushion isn't big enoughSide plates do you have not have enough adjustment forward and backwardsThe casters are crap and will break your chair don't use them. Go out and buy a good set of casters

Well made, sturdy with easy to follow instructions. Came with all tools needed for assembly and a ton of extra hardware. Only issue because attaching points for use with Next Level Racing Flight Stand Pro (NLR-S032) need to be modified if you purchase both items and want to attach them. Still all in all, very glad I selected this model.Maybe should have been a 3 as you can see if you watch the assembly videos that the assembler starts all screws by hand except these and the start this part with the screws already installed. I suspect they knew of this issue when they shipped. Still worth keeping.

Can be painful after a couple of hour stint. Should have used better seat bottom foam such as Oregon Aero. It’s less than 2 months old and gives you that authentic aircraft seat experience including the numb butt.