Hi ELMS77W, you come across as a very keen and interested person to me. You would love to fly, and after years of learning about flying, are about to start your PPL. I wish you every luck, and honestly hope you do well.
My thoughts for what they are worth:
Light aircraft are totally different from big modern jets. Totally different. You will probably find the C152 or PA28 unbelievably crude, basic, cramped and uncomfortable. There is a huge difference between the shirtsleeves-and-coffee flying of a 777 to being squashed against the shoulders of an instructor in a noisy, cold/hot C152. Many things that the big modern jets do automatically for you have to be worked out manually, longhand in the GA aircraft, e.g. Wind velocity, direction and groundspeed. Carburettor icing, fuel mixture etc. To go from light aircraft to a big modern jet takes many years of experience and intensive training, both ground school and 6 axis simulators.
Professional, 6-axis simulators can be fairly realistic, but they cannot reproduce all the accelerations or the visual and audio cues of the real thing. I have got 7 different commercial type ratings on my licence, and I've always found flying the real thing to be a lot easier than the Sim. But I do know of people who got through the Sim, but could not fly the real thing.
A significant number of airline pilots and trainers have an attitude that they are cleverer and better than you, and they think that if you are new to the industry, you know nothing until they have taught you. This is true to an extent and you have an enormous amount of work ahead of you, but you have to let them have their ego - they will be signing your licence. So even though you might have more knowledge than some newbies, do not mention this or sim flying at all, and pretend not to know anything much about flying - certainly not anything deeply technical or operational, such as de-icing hold-over times etc. Be quiet, modest and unassuming. The instructor should tell you what to learn next, so follow their guide.
When I joined my second airline I was about 15 years older than most students and I had had a different career before flying. I mentioned this in conversation when getting to know my first big-jet instructor and he did not like it at all. I think he thought I was big-headed or something, so he gave me a very hard time, and also set some of the other TREs against me. Yet, I was never big headed about flying - always knowing and accepting that I was no ace, just an average Joe.
So, I would keep quiet about any deep knowledge or sim flying. If specifically asked, you could say you've had a go on a friends sim a few times.
The Trevor Thom books are very good for learning and understanding the PPL basics.
Good luck !
Edit: I should also have said that "flying" a desk-top simulator, is nothing like the real thing either. Nothing like it. If you have actual line experience of flying a big jet, then a simulator can be useful for procedural practise or checklist, or memory drill practise, but it really is not anything like the real thing. When flying real big jets, everything happens very very quickly; the novice on their first few hours on the line will find themselves running to keep up with the aircraft, and they go home mentally exhausted.
.
Last edited by Uplinker; 11th Nov 2021 at 10:58.