I’m in the process of talking a friend of mine, @Jarebear40, into also catching my DCS addiction, so we went up in Su-25Ts today to continue the indoctrination.
The Su-25T is a great gateway aircraft. Light on systems depth, but not completely flat, and has more than enough capability to do damage. All it takes is a few keys to run through a cold start, a little discipline to taxi, a little more to takeoff, and then you can ravage.
This is a screenshot right after @Jarebear40 learns a valuable lesson - 2 always goes second. ALWAYS!
Yes, @klarsnow, I made the noob do a section takeoff. And yes, he crashed on his first attempt, although in all fairness, he was lead, and he crashed because…well, we still don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure it will be ruled death by noobness.
On his second takeoff, his nav system wouldn’t toggle to ENROUTE, so I had to gently guide him on course.
Unfortunately, I forgot to double-check our loadout prior to takeoff and we were both hauling laser-guided weapons - not the best system of choice for an introductory lesson to combat in the Su-25T. His first pass over the target had predictable results: failure to launch a weapon but success in taking a dump-truck load full of explosive shells into the fuselage.
Amazingly, he was able to keep it flying for quite a bit longer, streaking black smoke across the sky and drawing tracer fire from me like a good wingman.
Of course, the happy times had to come to an end and ol’ Jare succumbed to his Sudden Deceleration Trauma wounds almost instantly.
In the end we both learned a lot:
- I learned that left-shift-q continuously dispenses countermeasures.
- @Jarebear40 learned that laser-guided weapons are not easy-peasy to deliver.
- I learned the Su-25T can be on fire and still fly and function for a ridicuously long time.
- @Jarebear40 learned that the Su-25T does not handle like a War Thunder Bf109.
If he likes the Su-25T, he will really like the helicopters. 
