Two days ago I received my first ever HMD. It is a Pimax 5K+. Months before it arrived I bought vive wands and lighthouses to complement it. There are many words you can write to convey the experience using a VR in a flight simulator, or any simulator, but I guess they are not enough until you truly try it yourself.
My first experience with the Pimax was "The Blu", a beautiful and short underwater experience.
My second experience was with FlyInside, since it was written mainly for VR and I decided to support them, and so I bought it few weeks back, and I'm not regretting it a bit. I think they have done fantastic job, the first time I fired the sim and was sitting in the "MilViz B-55", I was astounded, it was so convincing, the sound the graphics, the scale of things. There are no bezel that distract the view, no screen size 24 vs 27 or resolution concerns: HD/2K/4K, all was not important at that moment. What was important for me was to drew in the site of the paint job on the wing, how real the scratches and ware around the seams, it is/was "my" plane that I flew, and it felt damn great to "seat" in it.
Looking around the gauges and flaps while doing a simple run-up test was fun and just felt right.
I guess that the most important part of VR in this regard is that it make you feel "being" in the scenery it project to you.
Next, I push the throttle to full and took off.... wow, the feeling of lift off might not be 1 to 1 as real airplane, but my belly did react to the change of the AoA and the rising plane.
I could not suppress a laugh, and a smile was probably smeared all over my face when I did a short round about flight. Another great thing about VR, is the easiness in "understanding" your plane location in air, I mean it was easy to align the plane relative to runway, or to asses the distances and descend rates. I also loved the feeling of flying over the land just for it giving way for a drop off while I was keeping my level....
This is a true visual simming experience, being without but feeling with.
I remember that after ~30min of flying I landed back during night hours (in the sim). When I took off the head set, I was struck by the room and house lights. Where the F*** they came from, I just finished a night landing. This is how convincing VR can feel, and I'll admit I had no clue until I tried it, it is that immersive.