Feather #3
Ahhhhh, there's nothing quite like taking delivery of a brand spanker, the smell of new is something else.
I was interested in your comment of the lack of noise on the flightdeck.
Whilst it's a mystery as to why the manufacturers haven't seriously addressed this issue before, I have a mild niggle about the complete absence of airflow noise as another sensory cue.
Maybe I am too old to learn new tricks or maybe an airflow noise "monitor" is part of my SA suite that sits quietly in the background, unnoticed until and unless the noise either changes, maybe subtley, or becomes inconsistent with the current flight state and draws attention to the need to "wake up" and go check and "see" what is going on.
It has not exactly saved my bacon in the past but it has alerted me to a not yet immediately apparent potential.
I guess its the same problem that I have, maybe its just me, in being able to fly a non motion flight simulator.
I can only put it down to lack of sensory/feel feed back.