The sims I spent most hours on:
Microprose Gunship ZX Spectrum (no Spectrum footage this is from Commodore 64 version)
Microprose F19 Stealth Fighter on ZX Spectrum and later the Commodore Amiga (again no Spectrum footage, this is from Amiga version I think)
I bought an Amiga some years later and became hooked on Falcon
I bought a PC and bought Falcon for that and spent a lot of time in DI's Tornado, loved the terrain following computer and the laser guided bombing.
Also played a lot of A10 Cuba
EF2000 really grabbed my attention though and played this solidly single player and multiplayer using a null modem cable.
That took me up to games like Falcon 4.0, Su27 Flanker, Flanker 2, Lock On etc etc. There were plenty of other great sims like Knights of the Sky from Microprose, Activision's 'Bomber' on the ZX Spectrum, F18 Interceptor, F22 but those video's above are from the games that really stand out for me as I spent so much time playing them. When I think back to some of my first sims like Microprose Gunship with its wire frame hills and basic flight control and compare it to something like IL-2 or DCS:A10 Warthog with my TrackIR and HOTAS its amazing how far we've come. I remember reading an article when I had my Spectrum that showed a military spec simulator used by the US Airforce and its solid textured wireframes and higher poly count and thinking how far asway it was from what I was playing and now we have self shading cockpits and dynamic lighting lol.
There used to be a BBS service in the UK called the 'Head2Head BBS' or H2H which ran regular ladder competitions for Falcon 3.0 and its add-ons. I used to spend hours reading the AAR's
