Heya Pilots,
Our most recent member @Spikeyspud brought up a very important topic we seldom talk about. Skill Errosion. We have all been a victim of this. Recently I was in a server with some of you. I was asked to take the Viper and even thou I had been into it the month before, I had lost everything. This is a common problem as your stable gets bigger and your brain gets older.
If you are like me and own more modules than you can manage I hope to give you some pointers here. Here is how I try to keep up with my stable.
First and foremost have a place to keep your stuff. My Documents has a DCS Manuals file. There I Keep a folder for each aircraft. Some aircraft share folders i.e. MiG-15/F-86,
Warbirds, Soviet aircraft in FC3 ect. My typical folder will have the DCS or Developer Manual and Chuck Owls Guide. I then add an Excell doc. The pic below depicts what I do for the controls section. I know its a bit hard to read but I never inteded to share these. The excell shows what every button does. I mostly use what Chuck Owl recomends but I add some secondary commands via the Cntrl Key. I fly in VR and its easy to find the Ctrl Key and press a button on the Stick. Below the control scheme in the same Excell doc I make a doc on how to start. I find this useful as it helps me memorize stuff and I can print them and keep them in a folder for use later. If you comb the User made files in DCS downloads, you can often find Kneeboard files for this. Some are better than others. I prefer to do it like this. Once I learn to start an aircraft i have modified my start several times. I prefer the Left to Right method. Start at the extreme left of the pit and move to the right. To the right of the start I add nice things like missile employment and how to get that pesky weapon to get off the rail.
When I get the need for speed on any bird, I have one place to go to review what I need.
While we are here, dont forget to save your controller profiles in the controls section of DCS. It will save you a lot of pain later. I am happy to reinstall DCS anytime as I save my control settings all the time.
Hope this helps.
Tomcat Excell sheet|397x500
I did the same last week, jumped into the viper and went omg what is this plane how do I lock targets etc. The only aircraft I can jump in and start and fight are the A10c the hip and huey. I struggle with all the others which is what makes the warbirds so attractive. Point and shoot and watch your temps 
Thats why I can always start the Korea and WW2 birds. They are my “I dont feel like thinking a lot” fallbacks.
I have this the other way around 
I hop into a different jet than the F-16 and I’m like why isn’t TMS up working!? Or that in the hornet or hog I’m pressing things the viper way and not the way they do things (like swapping MFD pages or making things SOI).
Anyway, this is a great idea! I suffer from this as well in some form. There are some planes that I managed to save in my brain-stem that I always manage to find my way around (hog, ka-50, F-16 and some others) but there are others that just don’t seem to stick and I immediately forget everything if I don’t fly her for a few weeks. (AJS-37 is notorious for me with all its modes and selectors and codes and T0/1/2 presses). So maybe making something like this will help me learn those aircraft as well on a more permanent basis 
I have spent 80+% of my time in the Hornet for the past 18 months and I am sure I’ve forgotten birds like the A-10, Ka-50, and the FC3 stuff quite a bit!
I was more proficient in the Tomcat after 4 months of owning it than I am today due to atrophy as well. 
I jumped in the F-18 last night and forgot how to start it. Once I got an engine up and running, I started thinking about how to drop bombs, I could remember so I aborted and jumped in my trusty A10. Lol.
Well, Real pilots use check lists. So why should us mere Virtual heros be different. How you manage your document library will determine how successful you are in a given airframe.
i.e. I want to fly a Huey this weekend. I started w ChuckOwl’s guide and began refreshing my startup and Weapons employment list.
I saw a pic of the Jeff and thought about how good I was with it a few months ago. Now I couldn’t start it, much less fire multiple rockets .
Well I guess real pilots wouldn’t fly 4 different types in 3 days…
We’re living in a candy store and as hard as it might seem I think the best way to stay proficient is to limit yourself to one treat at a time.
When I switch toys, I will need a short period of familization. The trick is to reduce the number of switches 