On the subject of flight sims, I haven't seen FMS mentioned here. This is a free flight simulator program or at least it was when I last used it. It's really quite good for a freebie. If you are handy with a soldering iron or know someone who is, you can even whip up a cable that will hook up the trainer jack of your transmitter to the printer port of your computer and allow you to control the sim. I have Realflight G2 now but the first thing I ever used was FMS with a homebrew cable and my transmitter. You can also fly it with a regular computer joystick but it isn't as realistic. The only drawback I can remember was that you couldn't use the cable/transmitter setup I had with Windoze XP, only Windoze Me, 98 and before. That's why I ended up with Realflight G2. I wish I'd gotten Aerofly Pro instead but that's another story. Don't have a link handy for FMS but just plug it into a search engine and you should find something.
Michael