To the OP,
When you went to the apparently disinterested schools, you didn’t mention MSFS did you and your current virtual flying qualifications?
This thread starts with you stating you have taken some tests and licenses of PPL standard and that you even have an IR. It might be best not to say these things to an instructor at first!
I think the sentence that is worrying most people is
”I accept I can’t land a 777 like a type rated pilot, or even a C172”.
I think the point is, you can’t land a 777 or a C172 at all.
I have landed a number of different types of light aircraft, my nephew has a sim with a yoke, throttle etc levers and pedals.
I cannot land a light aircraft on his sim, in fact everything feels wrong and reacts wrong.
Very few skills are transferable between the two.
He can,.. he’s practised for hours, learning how to land his sim, embedding muscle memory, adjusting to how it reacts to his inputs.
He can also fly and land all sorts of vintage aircraft on his sim.
so, he can land a sim, but not a real aircraft, I can land a real aircraft but not his sim.
If he ever wants to land a real aircraft he will have to overcome a lot of learnt behaviour that’s wrong.
The key point is, you can fly and land a sim.
You need to stop saying you can land a 777 or a light aircraft (“though not as well as a type rated pilot” !!)
I tried to fly a model aircraft once, that’s hard, also nothing like flying a real aircraft.
Sims, model aircraft, aircraft… all take skill to fly, lots of it, but all demonstrably completely different.
Your belief that you can land an aircraft because you can land your sim, is as wrong as a pilot could land your sim because they can land an aircraft.
You know how hard it is to land your sim, hard isn’t it? You don’t believe a pilot could do it without relearning a whole bunch of stuff do you?
If you like your sim, you’ll love the true intricacies of a real aircraft, and it’s a bit more serious when there’s no pause button, no lay-by to pull into when things are going badly, and you could get hurt if you miss things.
Here’s a simple for instance, when flying small aircraft in the sim, how often do you apply carb heat? That could really hurt if you forget in the air.