Winwing Orion Throttle F-16EX

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Winwing Orion Throttle F-16EX Assembly

There’s no printed manual for either the Winwing Orion Throttle base or the Orion F-16EX grips. You’ll need to go online and download them. To be honest, they leave a bit to be desired as far as explanations go but, it really isn’t all that bad. Pay attention to what you’re looking at in the manual and you’ll be fine.

 

To start the assembly, you’ll need to gather all your parts. You’ll need the Throttle Detent Plate, Orion throttle base, Orion F-16EX grip, the 90° brackets, and the two channels, as well as the various screws that are in the F-16EX kit.

 

First, you’ll want to move the left throttle lever to the forward most position and the right to the rearward most position. Then you’ll take the Orion F-16EX grip and line up the holes and use the three included screws to secure the F-16EX grip to the right throttle level. One thing to note, while the parts are made of aluminum, there’s no need to really crank down on the screws. If you do, there’s a possibility to pull the threads out of the right throttle lever.

 

Next, you’ll move the left throttle lever back to the most rearward position. Then you’ll insert the screw, washers, lock washer, and nut. Tighten until snug. Again, there’s no need to crank it down.

 

To complete the assembly of the Orion throttle base and the Orion F-16EX grip, you’ll need to attach the wiring to the grip. Out of the box, the wires from the throttle base are not long enough to reach the connector on the F-16 grip. The manual says to pull the wires to reach. To be honest, I was a little nervous about doing this but it turned out just fine. I pulled just enough to get the base and the grip connected and the connectors placed in their clips. I did a full-motion sweep front to back to ensure that none of the wires would get pinched during play. This completes the base/grip attachment. Now it is time to assemble and attach the Detent Plate.

 

I chose to assemble the next part a little differently than the manual specifies. The manual says to assemble these components then attach it to the throttle base. I chose instead to assemble the bracket, attach the assembled brackets to the base, and then attach the detent plate.

First, you’ll want to get the two 90° brackets and the two channel pieces. The brackets come with pre-installed screws with nuts on the back. You’ll slide the nuts into the channel and tighten the screws on the front of the brackets. This is a tight fit and may take some work to get the nuts to slide into the channel. The finished assembly should look like the image below.

Notice there is a captured screw in the base of the brackets, that is there for a specific purpose which I’ll go into in a second.

 

To attach the brackets to the base, you’ll need to insert a screw into the front of the bottom of the bracket assembly. This should result in two nuts at the bottom of the bracket. One captured and one that you’ve just inserted. Then you’ll line up the two nuts with holes in the bottom of the throttle and use the included screws to secure the brackets to the base of the throttle but do not tighten them all the way down just yet.

Now, I will tell you, that I thought Winwing pre-assembled the brackets incorrectly and left out the second nut. So, I added another nut that was captured. This resulted in the misalignment of the detent plate and loss of adjustability. So much for me trying to be smarter than the manufacturer.

 

Now that both brackets are attached to the base of the throttle, it is time to get the Detent Plate attached. You’ll start by inserting screws, washers, lock washers, and nuts as shown below. The nuts should be the only thing on the backside of the Detent Plate. Once that is done, you’ll side the nuts into the detent plate like you did when you assembled the brackets. Do not tighten the screws all the way down yet. You’ll still need to make adjustments so the wheel of the throttle rides on the Detent Plate.

 

You’ll want to move the bracket assembly in and out until you get the wheel as close to the center of the Detent Plate as possible. Once you have that, move the throttle back and forth to make sure there’s no interference between the Orion F-16EX Grip and the Detent plate. Once you have that set, you’ll then adjust the Detent Plate up and down until the wheel just touches the plate. This is not designed as a friction mechanism. The wheel should just barely touch the plate. Again, move the throttle through a full range of motion to ensure the wheel stays in contact with the plate throughout the whole range of motion.

 

When all said and done you should have a throttle assembly that looks like this with smooth motion all the way forward and all the way back.