I got never excited about Flightsim hence I can't give an opinion on it.
I have though heavily used Rant XL for my IR training and now use it before my LPCs.
I can't recommend it highly enough.
Sadly it's not available for Mac but I use Virtual Machine and a copy of Win 7 which runs inside Virtual Machine hey presto RantXL on Mac.
For Rant you only need a mouse no joystick. I believe you can download a memo version from Rant to check it out or if you are anywhere in Hertfordshire you can have a look at mine.