God, I love just- learning all the weird little quirks of an older flight sim aircraft. Sure, modern planes can do things more easily, but when you've got something with aerodynamic quirks that aren't just solved by fly-by-wire systems, or lots of mechanical, clicky switches instead of MFDs, it has like, a million percent more personality. Right now I've been learning the ins and outs of the Mirage F1EE in DCS, and it's amazing what they've done in this aircraft to provide all the creature comforts and information tools you'd expect in a more modern aircraft- as long as you can learn to speak its language, understand what the symbology is telling you, it's a plane that just... doesn't get in your way or try to out-think you, a pure dogfighter of a sort that has sadly gone the way of the dodo in the real world.
I think a lot about a lot of the Vietnam or middle eastern aces who talk about... the joy of being in an aircraft you fly, instead of one where you're just one in a set of computer inputs, and at the risk of sounding like a hipster- despite the gulf of experience between a sim and reality, I feel like you get that tiniest glimpse of that feeling in an older aircraft.
It's indescribably wonderful, one of my favorite feelings..
