I find many visually stunning moments coming back to me after 30 years, which I never had the time to appreciate when they happened - Seeing the Northern Lights from 40,000ft in a fighter cockpit, etc - but I have perfect recall now, and can enjoy them without the workload of operating the jet.
The best was probably leading a 4-ship LL escort when we came across a 4-ship of phantoms who were not part of our exercise, but had a go at us anyway. It was about 10 seconds into this low level fur-ball that I suddenly realised I knew what the f#ck I was doing - that all the years and years of exhausting training had worked. An epiphany.
That, and winning my first solo ACM 5-0. Wo-hoo!