I'm looking for something thats fun, i dont want to have to read a 400 page book to play it
Any suggestions? Time period doesnt matter.

A good combat flightsim often involves reading some, or at least jotting down the most important control keys on a note you can stick to the monitor.

But there really is no better combat flight sim than Il-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles. It's a great, great flightsim.

Here's a (cropped) screenshot of my P-39 I took the other day during takeoff. Nice.



L-ViS

I've got a demo for that, and it is very fun
I'm not very good at it yet (attacking a ground target usually involves me running into it right after it explodes)

EDIT: And i dont mind a little learning curve, that's to be expected.
As long as it's not too grueling