> It taught me two things: what some of the noises, the vibrations, and the movements were; and how hard it is to actually crash a plane. Once you made it in the air, you'll want to try crashing your plane in the game (explosions! fun!), and it will be undoubtedly harder than you imagine.

It's a good thing you didn't try flying a virtual helicopter then, those things are deathtraps. I have some experience flying the KA-50 "Black Shark" in DCS and before you get a feel for it is very easy to make your rotors bump into one another and break (mostly due to its weird double rotor), get in a vortex ring state, or simply bump into stuff horizontally while landing.

Crashing is still fun, it just waaaay easier than with a plane. At least the board computer will whisper sweet nothings to you after you've lost most of your rotors and are once again falling like a brick... "watch EKRAN".