I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet, but I started off way back with Air Warrior II. The intro was probably my favourite thing about this game. That, and the fact that it had sheep you could run over or strafe. You could literally drive or fly anything in that game, but all the tanks and jeeps had FM's, so you could do a barrel roll in a tank. In hindsight, the phsyics weren't all that great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltZST2LJ8t0

From that, it was CFS, CFS2, a brief stint in EAW and a B17 game that I can't remember the name of but had the absolute best crew management systems in any flight sim I've ever played, I still wish someone would remake it. Then after that came the various itterations of Il2, from the original, to FB, PF, then 1946 with mods. Now I split my time between CloD, RoF and A10, though with the latter I haven't had time to learn the systems. Although it seems an amazing sim in theory, I'm too lazy to learn to play it properly.

EDIT: It's not really a flight sim, but did anyone play a BoB game way back in the 90's on PC where you were in the ops room and had to control the placements of RAF flights to intercept incoming raids etc.? You'd get radar and OC warnings as to where and what raids were coming, then had to scramble the aircraft to that location and detail to raid etc. Again, hands down probably one of the best games I've ever played, it's so brilliantly simple. Unfortunately though all it says on the disc is 'Battle of Britain', and there doesn't seem to be a game with that name, so I've never been able to find it again.

cfs, eaw,cfs2, il2

My Simming "Career" started in MSFS, roughly 12 years ago, i had no idea what i was doing, kept crashing every plane, so i shelved it. Forgive me, i was young and stupid :D .
Then came Jane´s F16, iirc, Flanker 2.0 and what was the name? ah yeah, 5 mins of reenabling dead brain cells resulted in success, JSF. But all those were not what i was looking for, until, 2005, behold the image of a mighty 109, printed on a Magazines DVD and the letters "IL-2: Sturmovik". A sim that finally had, what i was looking for. It was quickly followed by PF and then nearly on release, CloD.

Oh, forgot about that one, played it a bit waiting for EAW to come out...loved that intro too, the rest, beh, not so much :-P

Damn I feel old reading all of you...

My first sim was the famous lunar landing sim on early PC.

Then I had 6128 and played extensively on TopGun, an F14 Tomact BFM simulation where the alrdy small screen was halfed in two parts and you could fight against an opponents seated along side you with gun only (the Phoenix missiles were alward with perf simulating the Spa and the Sid). This was a good one that built the mind of a virtual fighter pilot as the "graphics" were pretty well summed up by a straight line for the horizon. It developed my SA very well since you had to keep a close look to all the info in your HUD and build your airspace and trajectory by the numbers.


Then I switched to Comodore and started with F18 a pretty good sim at the time with pyramid shaped mountain etc...

Staying on Comodore I pretty tried everything that was launched on this platform including Birds of Prey that was pretty good at the time (ahhh will never forget my run in space inside the cockpit of my beloved X-15 at Mach 6+).

then there was the PC with Microprose1942 on the pacific campaign where I mastered formation flying during long flight from Rabaul to Guadalcanal in my Zero (no autopilot, no accelered time, real sized map !), Flight (unlimited) I, II and III, the reality and the amazing DID EAF and Falcon 4 (the best PC sim ever).

Soon I went back to civil PC sim with Fly. Then WWII Jane's, EAW (with complete campaigns in the RAF, the LufW and the USAAF !).

And everything else that went out.

I might have forget some but you will forgive me for my grand age. :roll:

Flying Corps Gold (WW1) and good for it's time.

European Air War

il2 series

Microsoft 'something' which was on my HD for about 8 or 9 seconds...

Cliffs of Dover

I think in the correct order:

Overlord

Flight Unlimited (Civilian, never ran well)

Dawn Patrol Head to Head (WWI)

Red Baron II (WWI hated it)

Flying Corps (WWI)

Flying Corps Gold (WWI loved it)

European Air War (wonderful)

Rowan's Battle of Britain (great)

Mig Alley (Korea)

CFS 3? (eeargh)

IL2 series (simply the best)

Over Flanders Fields (atmospheric)

BoB WoV (dated)

Rise of Flight (not bad)

CLOD (:()

RedToo.

Mig Alley was from Rowan too if I do remember well. Quite a good sim.

Air Warrior I & II
Fighter Duel MP on Kali
Warbirds
EAW MP on Kali
Jane's WWII Fighters
Il2 series
CLoD

I friggin loved this game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GxVovoJcM