Well put Grimes.
Before flying with Lock On, i was playing with the planes in Battlefield 1942, MS Flight sim, and even before that, i was playing with those "iF-22" games by Novalogic etc... And after hundreds of hours messing around with the Choppers in BF 2 (yes, you heard me, bf 2), settling down with the Black Shark for the first time wasn't as challenging as it could've been ;)
Obviously it's day/night difference in the FM etc, but the general "helicopter principles" were already mastered.