I also got my pilot's license a few years ago after developing a love of flying from the Microsoft Flight Sim 95 era and beyond. In VR, while I've never had the "full controls," in higher-end aircraft software I could very accurately (literally to just about 100%) recreate my IRL flights with the exception of the feel of the yoke and whatnot. Again, awesome gaming experience.
Lastly, I've played quite a bit of poker in PokerstarsVR. The thing that surprises me the most about THOSE experiences is that this attempt to create a pretty simple and at first-glance unexciting experience in VR to me revealed just how incredible VR actually CAN be. Like, yes, I get the value-add that the videogame can have for something like flying an airliner or a formula car, but wouldn't you always rather play poker with your friends IRL? Well, to me, VR showed me that that answer is a resounding 'no.' IRL poker is slow (just from shuffling and dealing, to say nothing of folks fumbling with chips), if you play poker well you'll be sitting out a lot of hands, so that can get boring, etc. In VR, however, I could see many, many more hands/hr, I could pin a TV to the virtual room and watch whatever I wanted as I'm talking with folks all over the world, could engage in side-games with the person next to me if I wasn't in a hand, etc. Just... unbelievably compelling. It made me a believer that I could EASILY see how in the near future even if I had 8 friends at home who really wanted to play poker, that I'd rather have each of us reaching out for our personal VR devices to do that in rather than reaching for a deck of cards.