I grew up on flight sims thanks to my Dad. He loved WWII dogfighting and was enthralled with the IL-2 Sturmovik series, but he got me into it with Crimson Skies.
Now when we have some free overlapping time and the time zones are kind to us (He's in Europe), we hop into VTOL-VR together and it's just fantastic. Can actually wave at each other from our cockpits while we're on different continents and with the new helicopter DLC we can pilot/gunner in the same craft with each other.
IL-2 Sturmovik had some of the best physics for spins[1] out of any simulators at the time. Not sure how far things have come but from what I can tell sims still struggle with this.
That's the best part, compared to people's crazy HOTAS setups, this is all relatively minimal. I just have my Valve Index connected to my desktop. My dad uses an HP Reverb G2 also connected to his desktop. His setup is technically less overhead, as the Reverb doesn't have the light houses the Index has. Everything runs through Steam and just works. It's not crazy cheap, but it's a blast and it's super easy to hop in and out of.
Now when we have some free overlapping time and the time zones are kind to us (He's in Europe), we hop into VTOL-VR together and it's just fantastic. Can actually wave at each other from our cockpits while we're on different continents and with the new helicopter DLC we can pilot/gunner in the same craft with each other.