What can I say, I have the earlier Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS, and it is AWESOME.
Can't say how it compares to Saitek, but the Thrustmaster is really, really nice, although you basically have to bolt it to something because of the stiff springs. And there's quite a few mods available.
Although sadly, it's horribly underused at the moment since I run battlefield 4 more, and actually have to keep a Logitech wingman 3d pro for that purpose, because the quick non-sim games are horrible with a HOTAS with stiff springs, Logitech is for play fly like the BF4 and BF3 stuff, HOTAS is for seriousness.
You might want to get into looking at rudder pedals and TrackIR as well. Pedals especially if you want to get into choppers.
And take a look at some of Dskyecxi's videos. He flies a fair bit in Arma and several other things and has videos up on pedals, TrackIR, etc.
Just a couple of days ago he looked at a new rudder pedal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_5keOriIoBut if you are going to be hard into the A-10, Thrustmaster Warthog would be a good thing.... you know, for realism. But they are quite expensive.