Recommendation on TX system for a crane

[Wombii]

A 3D stick can rotate in addition to up/down/left/right. They often have a button on top as well. There is a thread somewhere about someone who added them to an frsky radio, but I can't find it at the moment.

The Taranis Q X7 is a stick radio that can output 16 channels, but only have enough switches for 12. You can program a mode switch that changes channel assignments for the switches or sticks on the fly or even do some programming trickery to use the trim buttons to control the rest of the channels. I'll be using both of these methods in my own build. I'm also using an Arduino mega with an frsky SBUS receiver.

The Taranis X9E / X9D have more inputs. The Horus adds a color display and some extra scripting functionality.