...kids just carry striaght on because they already have 10000 hours on MS sim and you have nag them all the time to look out the window...
Affirm on that !
I spent some time simming before starting my PPL and basically flew on instruments for the first 5 hours of instruction. I was driving my instructor crazy, "look out of the damn window !". I was holding altitude at +-100 feet, perfect turns on instruments, etc. etc.
Have to admit that when doing normal turns, I still do that just as much using the artificial horizon as the real one. Shame on me.
However, when it came to instrument flight training (a couple of hours included in the PPL) it helped me a lot. I could fly for hours in foggled or real IMC. Also helped a lot when I took my night qualification.
Wasn't there a Canadian study that gave the average VFR pilot something like 90 seconds to live in after entering IMC ?
Perhaps PPL students should be encouraged to spend X hours in a simulator ?