No.
It is more enjoyable...but
You can also set up everything on a keyboard.
years ago when I was traveling a lot at work and i wanted to work on mods as well - I was using a laptop. And testing - playing without a joystick. And It is not hard, not so hard. I would say it is easy like brushing teeth. You just need to have comfy key mapping.
I had no single issue with that. I was able to fly, here and there, do some dogfights, strafe ground targets, etc. All sorts of stuff as with joystick but on keyboard.
still have my Test fighters install on laptop. throttle + / - (Z and X) rudder (A and S) general movement on arrows...the rest is just matter of easy access on the keyboard more like first-person shoooter....easy peasy.