The answer to the question of how good the flight model, to me, is comprehended when one asks for advice on which books one might use to bone up on fighter combat tactics in this game, and the books recommended are the ones written by actual fighter pilots for real-world aerial combat. People pull the same kinds of combat maneuvers in this game as were done in real life because they work the same way. If the flight model were greatly different, I'd expect different tactics to evolve to take advantage of the differences.
To a certain, very limited extent you see that in things like stick-stirring, which simply would not happen in real life, but the combat maneuvers themselves are the real deal.
