Hello. Welcome. And hold your horses.
I am sure you will find a lot of joy in messing around with the game. But I can only give you some advice based on my experience.
See those updates. And release dates. Quite old. But it does not mean they are bad. Just old, and over time, we had many extras that were better than the old updates. First example. Many weapons are already overhauled by our dear Ravenclaw. You see his work, and you do not want to drop those bombs. Many ground objects were updated, and most importantly, many aircraft were overhauled from time to time by modders. So this is where everything is getting crazy.
I know that all this modding might be a scary thing, but the truth is, it is not. I would like to recommend some packages to install, but I am not going to do that. Because honestly, as for Vietnam era packs, we had many, and possibly we will have at least one more.
But I can recommend one thing. Know the game, get into it, understand game structure, and how mods are living their own life within the game. And then, one step to build your own game mod. Yes, older users here might have a different opinion, but this is just my way of looking at the mods here. And this is how i have my mods installed - I download the mod, unpack, I examine the whole content, and then I pick stuff that I want to have in-game. I played some role in creating Desert Storm mod...yet, my ODS mod was built from zero, based on a mod that was uploaded here.
But the Air and Ground Expansions packs are quite impressive mods. Just quite old. Download. And if you know how to mod a game, just pick what is interesting from it and play. One more advice - lot of weapons are updated in WeaponPack v2 by ravenclaw. And More weapons are updated but never officially uploaded in his weapon pack thread. So you got the Air and ground expansion pack. While many things were updated, but never uploaded in the download section.
But we are here. ready to help...
Even if they are saying that we are close-minded guys on the old forum, and we do not like new users, we are arrogant, and we have problems tolerating piracy
it is still fun being part of this forum.
I understand and approve your choices
If that 76 in your nickname is your birthdate...you are not that old armchair pilot. Imagine, some guys here claim they were playing flight sim while Orville and Wilbur were tinkering in the barn