I play some DCS and am incredibly bad at it. And I harbor no illusions that it is in any material way an accurate depiction of aerial combat or the rigors thereof. But one thing I think it completely accurately conveys is at least a small measure of the complexity and difficulty of flying and surviving in high performance fighter jets.

The number of times I’ve made some small error and turned into a smoking hole in the ground - well, it happens most of the times I play. But these folks go up and are lucky if they get to walk away from a single mistake. Much respect.