The oldest 'real' flight sim I played (and still look at from time to time for nostalgia reasons) was cockpit only (plus a navigation map).
Free flight, practice interception, in-flight refuelling, practice dogfights, interception mission. All done with an analogue control input mapped from keyboard controls (twin throttles, rudder, elevators and ailerons, flaps, landing gear, airbrakes, drogue chute etc (or apparently a digital joystick, but I didn't own one back in 1988)). Had a nice 'gun camera' which auto recorded any tracking of a target within weapons parameters, or on pressing the camera key. G load limits (with varied with fuel load), stall - around a dozen recognisable aircraft as targets or support aircraft - Victor, Valiant, Vulcan, SR71, Backfire ~ Lightning, F4, F16, F104, Tornado, Mirage (III?), MiG 23. A dogfight AI which was fairly competent, but didn't obviously cheat or suffer unreasonable (not platform appropriate) performance penalties compared to the player aircraft (aside from unlimited fuel?)... which made stretching the low fuel supply a major part of any successful session. Afterburners chew through the fuel supply rapidly, and acceleration on unloading was brisk to the point of being a common problem resulting in controlled flight into terrain.
Lightning Simulator ~ and all for the low-low price of £1.99 on initial release on cassette.
I have vastly preferred to play from within the cockpit whenever look controls are sufficiently adequate (anything worse than a game from 1988 is fairly inexcusable though, even one as well coded as this was).