For anyone interested in DCS A-10 I recommend downloading the below document pack that someone in their forums created. It has a lot of great info quickly available at your fingertips.
http://files.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/86362/
Also there are some great tutorials on the wiki:
http://en.wiki.eagle.ru/wiki/DCS_A-10C_Guides,_Tutorials_and_Reference_Documents
It takes a bit of time to get used to the game and I would recommend a good HOTAS with a large amount of buttons. I use a Saitek X-52, but my brother has been able to play it with a keyboard and an old ST290 because it lets you bind key modifiers to adjust what the hat does. The real A10-C has about 4 hats that all do different commands so you'll be using the hat switch quite a bit.
Once it clicks, it's a blast to play.
There's also an iOS app for the checklists. Can't check the name right now but I found it by searching Warthog I think. It's great for interactive checklists.