Kraut,
Go and checkout dome other site's takes on psf...they are much more flattering than Dan's. Dan has reviewed the sim with a hardcore simmer's perspective,,..Heck, Crash didnt even like F15. It is well known that Crash flies Falcon 4 and anything will be compared to that. PSF is yes, a re-incarnation of Hornet Korea, but if you think usaf has crappy FM's and Janes has too much clickology and falcon 4 is just to lowbrow (every man and their pets are playing it)..psf is a good alternative. The graphics are great...especially on a lower end pc...it has the option of using glide so it looks superb on a voodoo card, the terrain has trees!!...falcon/janes/mig alley etc..dont!...The clouds are better on the frame than all of the hardcore sims and they are fluffy, transparent and well done. The lighting effects are there and every command has a keyboard stroke...which means you dont need to touch the mouse.
After feeling around in the dark of janes f18, psf is like a refreshing wake up. It does have its shortfalls..like mach 2 at sea level...but...what sim doesnt. another good point is that anyone who has a pc with 266mhz cpu can play it...so even though its popularity is not there cause most consider themselves hardcore simmers...it appeals to all types of gamers with the whole spectrum of system specs.
If you dont like janes f18 (too dark/tooclicky/very hard on the frame rate)..and dont like falcon 4 (patching, pussy plane, clicky, studysim)...and want a shorter learning curve before fun...psf is a definite choice.. I play jf18,jf15,migalley and lately jf18 has taken the back seat to psf.
IMO.