I was talking to a stunt pilot recently, and asked him about that (the stunt plane on display had pretty much the same amount of padding). Apparently the paddin

I was talking to a stunt pilot recently, and asked him about that (the stunt plane on display had pretty much the same amount of padding). Apparently the padding (at least for them) compresses when you're under a high number of G's, and it causes you to move the joystick.