Are you having problems with your Saitek radio panels where you seem to be forever trying to turn the knob a fraction of a millimetre to get the right digit, only to find it jumps past the number again! Or wish you could assign a knob to turn to set barometric pressure. Do you feel the Saitek Official drivers just don’t cut it.

Fortunately, as always, a member of this wonderful flight sim community we belong to has come up with replacement drivers that really do make a difference and the best news is, they are FREE.

Saitek Panels Advanced Driver or ‘SPAD’ for short.

Spad is a replacement driver for the Saitek Pro-Flight Radio, Multi and Switch panel. Spad implements features like:

• Compatibility with add-on aircraft supporting keystrokes and virtual joystick  button (using Peter Dowson’s FSUIPC)
• Improved knobs sensitivity with tunable acceleration
• Additional features like altimeter barometric regulation
• Many bugs fixed (missed glide slope in FS2004, Nav1 switch etc.)
• Much better stability

SPAD REQUIREMENTS

• Windows 7, Vista or XP.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) or Flight Simulator X (FSX)
• A registered version of FSUIPC is required to use the Virtual Buttons feature
• FSUIPC (Free or registered) is required for use with FSX

Important note: Windows 7 and Vista users will need to disable User Account Control (UAC) or run SPAD with Administrator rights (right-click and select “run as Administrator”).

INSTALLATION
Simply download the file andrun the automatic setup tool ( SetupSpad.exe)

STARTING SPAD
Once installed, double-click the SPAD icon. This can be done before or after running Microsoft Flight Simulator. You must have your Saitek panel (s)  connected before running SPAD.

SPAD places an aircraft icon in the tray bar, so to view the user interface double click on the little aircraft icon.

Spad is free but if you like the software, please make a donation on the same page to show your appreciation. You can download SPAD here .