Go for IL-2 if WWII is your thing.
For modern jets, there's massive rivalry between Falcon 4.0 Allied Force and LO:MAC (even more than rfactor vs LFS !)
It's true of a lot or beers 'they don't travel that well'. O.P. tastes better the nearer you are to Masham, and Boddingtons tastes better in Manchester!
Just wanted to add that I don't have many must-watch TV programs, I get bored with TV very quickly. I prefer my entertainment interactive!
I hope eventually outsiders will realise it's just as valid a form of entertainment as TV
Some people say 'You play games!?' thinking gaming is for 12 year olds only. But the stats for LFS show the average age is 26 or something. Nothing I say would change their opinion so I forget about it.
Others are extremely interested that I enjoy a very realistic motor-racing simulator with people across Europe and beyond. They can't comprehend I'm racing bumper to bumper next to someone from Portugal/Finland etc.
I read about a simple 7-segment display at RSC by Vladimir Kadlec, and had a go myself. He wrote a little program to send data from LFS through the parallel port.
Read the instructions at RSC forum. You need a 7 segment display, a parallel cable, a few resistors and a bit of soldering.
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned here so have taken the opportunity to show mine off.
I sometimes found I was messing up in corners when changing to the incorrect gear, at mid corner the in-game gear display is hidden by the arms crossing (I know you can disable the arms being displayed). This external display helps with this and also looks good.
It's also possible to have a shift light on the decimal point, but I've fitted a dedicated shift light for more visibility.
In hindsight, the display I chose was not bright enough (high-efficiency red, HE Red), but it appears better contrast than the picture suggests - it was necessary to have all the lights on for taking the picture.
Do you have more than one controller? Check in options>controllers which device is receiving the FF instructions, in case something/windows has swapped them round.
It allows you to assign a button as shift, thereby doubling up the functions on the other buttons.
You're now going to tell me about other programs that can also do that... :P
My ISP, Vispa, had a similar thing that their 2 fat pipes wouldn't distribute the connections evenly. So they recommend reconnecting several times to get on the 2nd pipe which is less populated. Though a 3rd pipe is planned to come online soon, so loads of capacity