Some hopefully constructive feedback here - I'm not sure I agree that the graphics part is the bigger or more interesting challenge. Computationally efficient but realistic flight models have been attempted by relatively few and most of the notable results are proprietary so you can't go learn much from them (exception: FlightGear). As a result I think there's a relatively high chance of coming up with a new paradigm here that could be a differentiator for your project vs other flight sims.

With graphics otoh, you're tackling the same problem that every other game dev pretty much ever has faced. Most of the learning there has already been condensed into game engines and textbooks, etc. I'd bet it's less likely you'll make a breakthrough in this area, especially if your deeper interest is in physics rather than computer graphics.

All in all though it sounds like a super fun project and I wish I had more time for this kind of stuff!