It’s been a few months since I upped my flight sim gaming with the Honeycomb Aeronautical Alpha Flight Controls Lite. The Alpha Lite is a great option for beginner simmers, and it immediately had me wondering what else was out there. I spend most of my sim time flying around in small prop engine aircraft, so when I saw the Honeycomb Sierra TPM (throttle, prop, mixture) Module, I thought it would be a good piece of kit for my first cockpit upgrade. I wasn’t wrong, but after spending time with it, I have to wonder if it can find a permanent home Living In My GameSpace.
If you already have a piece of Honeycomb Aeronautical kit, you can guess what you are getting with the Sierra TPM Module. If not, Honeycomb’s packaging may leave you thinking you’re getting another basic flight peripheral. The box is covered in the usual logo and product information. Opening the box, you’ll find the base, clamps, the Sierra module, and a quickstart guide all contained in molded pulp packaging – it’s basic, and nothing about the unboxing feels premium. Honeycomb leaves the premium for where it counts – in the product itself.
For general aviation sim pilots, the Honeycomb Sierra TPM Module feels like a perfect companion to their flight yoke. If you own other Honeycomb products, you don’t have to worry about your cockpit looking like a hodgepodge of mismatched gear. The design matches the rest of Honeycomb’s lineup – all-black panels with a honeycomb-style faceplate, although the Sierra lacks the red LED backlight found on the Alpha and Alpha XPC controls.
The Sierra also uses the same mounting system as the rest of Honeycomb’s lineup. The baseplate attaches to your desk via two clamps, with the module sliding onto the ball mount in the middle of the plate. Two leveling feet at the back of the panel are then tightened down to provide a strong, sturdy platform that won’t move around during use. The unit is then attached to your PC using the USB-C to USB-A cable provided in the box.
The Sierra TPM Module is modeled for general aviation prop-driven aircraft. The cluster includes the TPM levers, a trim wheel, a flap switch, a parking brake, a landing gear lever, and a landing gear visual indicator with three red/green LED lights.
Functionally, you are getting everything you would expect from a TPM module and a little more. The throttle has a full 0-100% range, and the built-in tensioner allows you to set the force required for pushing and pulling to a comfortable level. Having physical control of the throttle through a realistic lever adds a level of immersion that you don’t get from assigning incremental inputs on your keyboard or using a small throttle stick on the side of a joystick. I’m not a pilot in real life, but I imagine this is exactly what it feels like to pull the throttle in a Cessna.
The prop and mixture levers are equally authentic. The blue and red knobs match the look of real planes, complete with push locks to ensure that the levers aren’t accidentally moved during operation. The vernier-style levers allow for precise adjustments. If you’re unfamiliar with vernier levers like I was, once you set the general position and the lever is locked in place, you can twist the knob left or right to make very fine adjustments to the lever’s position. It may seem like overkill, but if you’re ready to move into the realism of setting your own prop and mixture levels, you’re going to want the precision that the Sierra TPM Module provides.
The Sierra goes beyond just the three levers. Next to the three levers, you’ll find a flap switch. The flap control isn’t a full-range device as you’d find in a real cockpit, but the reduced footprint of the up/down toggle gives you adequate control of the flaps and leaves enough room on the panel for a small parking brake knob. Even though they don’t have the same authenticity as the TPM levers, it’s a trade-off that stays close enough to the real thing while giving more functionality to the user.
Rounding out the Sierra TPM Module are a trim wheel on the left and a landing gear lever and visual gear indicator on the right side of the panel. The trim wheel is a great addition that gives you precise control. It is a must-have for anyone ready to move beyond the beginner stage of flight sims.
The landing gear knob and gear indicator are sort of the odd man out on the Sierra TPM Module. When needed, the lever gets the job done, and the indicator lights are a nice way to check gear status with a quick glance, but with so many prop-driven aircraft having fixed landing gear, they will often be left unused. Perhaps some light or electronic switches would have been a better fit for the panel, although those are already available on the Honeycomb Alpha Yoke.
Final Thoughts
The Honeycomb Aeronautical Sierra TPM Module is my first experience with a cockpit panel beyond a yoke, flight stick, or HOTAS, and I’m impressed. It’s well-built, and the added levers and knobs add a new layer of immersion to flight simming. It’s more than just immersion and realism, though.
The accuracy gained through the levers and knobs is uncanny. I always find myself overadjusting with keyboard or flight stick toggles, and it takes way more effort than it should to get throttle or trim dialed in. With the Sierra, I didn’t have to take my eyes off the screen to find the correct controls, and adjustments are more fluid and accurate using the physical controls. Now I regret never adding more peripherals to my flight simming in the past, and I suspect I’ll be scheduling much more flight time into my gaming schedule because of the addition.
Even with all of the positives of the Sierra TPM Module, I still have to ask myself one question: regardless of how good the device is, is it worth the cost? If you are only into prop-driven general aviation craft and want ultimate realism, then you’re going to love the Sierra. It’s way more realistic than using a keyboard or toggle switches on a flight stick for TPM management, and the extra controls are also great, especially the trim wheel.
If you aren’t as concerned about realism as you are functionality, the Sierra TPM Module may not be the best bang for your buck. Honeycomb’s Bravo Throttle Quadrant is built for single and multi-engine jet aircraft, but it can still be used with general aviation aircraft; swap in the GA handles, and you have more functionality with slightly less realism than the Sierra. Going the other way with the Sierra TPM Module does work, but you lose much of the Bravo’s functionality. If you can only choose one, I’d pay the extra $50 to get the Bravo Throttle Quadrant.
