I'm still wading through learning the Rhino and am hoping that those with more success / experience with it would be so kind as to list the essential buttons that need to be mapped to HOTAS and what their particular function is. I have the basics but am struggling with radar, weapons and nav/comm.

We are still working through it and I am only now getting to bookmarking and reading the manual (which, btw is the best DCS manual yet and more closely resembles a real flight manual than anything I’ve seen in DCS). We can cold start, takeoff and land plus have done a few easy engagements trying to work out the Fox 1’s. I was able to do some air refueling in SP and found it is not that bad and close to the real thing. The boomer does most of the work compared to trying to catch that drogue in the Navy planes. 
 

I recommend looking at the DCS chapter 9. They give some essential button mapping tips. They also have a lot of other good game setup tips like how to move and resize Jester, which I was having a problem with at first in VR. 

This has to be the best and most detailed module yet. I am impressed in how much detail and thought they put in to everything. 

@Erhardt and I were planning on working some more on it later tonight for anyone interested around 2200 ET