Welcome to SimV!!!

1.  Was the jet on water or land?  It is possible to "bounce" off water and sustain no damage.  I did with my gloster meteor.  Bouncing off of land is much more likely to damage your health.

2.  The air files of aircraft are editable using various software.  One version comes free with Fs2k2 pro edition.  Many people spend a great deal of time trying to get the aircraft they design as realistic as possible.  Fighter jets "feel" like fighter jets.  Some do go ultra fast but tend to fall apart if you try anything fancy at ludicrous speed and above.

3. A joystick and plenty of time.

4. Unfortunately I have been unable to find any software that will automatically update your sim.

Good luck Steve.

Will

And now you've arrived here Steve , a couple of answers:

You're bouncing off the ground is probably due to you not having crash detection on. You'll find it in realism settings under the aircraft menu once you've actually got to the cockpit.

In order to see actual damage, the aircraft has to have damage texturing. Most of the default aircraft do, but only some add-on aircraft.

You enable it by adding the following line to your aircraft.cfg file for the plane you want to see it on, just above the description near the top:

visual_damage=1

Use notepad to edit the file - it's all text.

Aircraft all have realistic flight dynamics confined only by the limitaqtions of the fact that it's a simulator and the skills of the person producing them.
A fighter should behave like a fighter, not a 747.

To make a flight successfully, you must be able to navigate. Initially, you'll probably find it easier to use the GPS than the radios iunless you're familiar with the ins and outs of radio navigation. Bear in mind that this is a simulator, and you will need to acquire some skills before successfully completing a journey anywhere.

There's very little in the way of automated file updating. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My personal experience with automated installers is that at best they achieve what you could have done yourself, and at worst, they lash the whole simulator up.
Spend a little time reading the documents that come with the downloads and you'll soon become familiar with the process. It's reasonably standard for most downloads.

[3] Start Flight Simulator,  Look on left side,  Click Create Flight,  When window opens, Look down at bottom, Click Flight Planner.
  You can start from any Airfield and Fly to any Airfield.

The friggin radio works real well for beginners if you just use the pop-up window.  Click the appropriate button on the panel (the one with the earphones) or press the "~" key on your keyboard.  It will bring up the display screen and you should have a choice labled "select airport".  Press the appropriate number and it will give you a list of all the airports in the vicinity, starting with the closest.

If you want to take a trip to a specific airport, i.e. JFK to LAX, follow the instructions given by Ivanow above, and use the autopilot to navigate to the airport, or just follow the flight plan on the GPS.

If you have any other problems, go back to the Private Pilot Lesson #3 in the Learn to Fly section.  This will teach you all about VOR navigation.  Once you understand that, start playing around with the autopilot--you'll learn quick enough.

Good luck and happy flying!

even better than the map mode included in fs2002 is an add-on called fsnavigator. It has all the best functions of the gps and map, along with the fact it can scan and add add-on scenery to it's database. you can open it and put it in a window so it is visible while you fly ( rather than pausing the sim like the map does)
it is also a good flightplanner and will couple to the autopilot,  and even tune your radios as the flight progresses if you want it to. you can reposition youraircraft by clicking on the map and tagging move airplane to here, you can fly to a selected point by clicking on the map and tagging fly to here. it has too many features to describe. I got it about three years ago and couldnt imagine not using it.
www.fsnavigator.com
this program is payware but you can use it for a limited time for free to check it out.  But it's worth every penny.