Keendog,
I'm not sure I agree with you about flight sims. I found FS2000 extremely useful for some things, and not so useful for others.
For example, practicing circuits at your home airfield and calling out all the checks, etc. is very useful. The actual flying of the circuit is fairly useful as it gets you used to speeds, etc., although judging the turns is tricky. On the other hand, I would suggest that landing a real airplane is easier than landing flight sim - because you have peripheral vision and much better feedback through the controls in real life.
One thing where flight sim was particularly useful was navigation. Set up some winds, plan a DR sortie, and go fly it. You have to be a bit careful because a lot of the visual aids are missing, but this can be fixed with an expansion pack. Another very useful aspect was practicing radio nav - intercepting VOR radials, etc. General handling is very good - keeping level in a steep turn, etc.
So, anything which requires a good look around you (circuits for judging when to turn, landing for using peripheral vision to judge the flare, etc.) is limited. But for anything else (IMC practice, radio nav, general handling, power/attitude on the approach) it is very good.
All IMHO, of course!
TPK
