I wonder if by then we'll be able to directly stream a simulated environment into our nervous system (think something Matrix-esque) where you could be physically lying in your bed but virtually in the cockpit of the plane as if you were really there. Previously I would've simply dismissed that as science fiction, but if I was currently living in 1982 it would be hard to imagine what we have now.
As a young kid in 1982 I thought those graphics were stunning, at least compared to text based games I'd been playing.
For the future I personally think it really depends on if mainstream AR/VR will get traction or not, and there are so many challenges for that. Flight sims (and combat, driving games etc) are a great but very small niche of whales that benefits from the tech, but it needs a bigger consumer base than that to push it forward. AR is a better bet I think, and I could picture flight sim's using that well. I currently use either a VR controller in a 3D space or a mouse to flick switches in the virtual cockpit, but mixing real-world and the sim would take it up a notch - especially if haptic.
Graphically VR is still pretty awkward for this sort of thing, as even though 3164x3096 per eye the clarity struggles for real-world simulation like this (lots of detail in a cockpit). We need variable focus depth, higher refresh rates and better (non-fresnel) lenses tech. Meta/Apple/Valve hint at it, and Varjo has some good new things, but it's a race condition between having a monster PC to drive it = niche market vs stand-alone AR/VR for consumer adoption. I guess streaming the entire experience from the cloud via high bandwidth and stand-alone is really the only way this is going to go.
I'll post back in 40 years to see if I was close. ;)
