I agree with Pilcher that FSxxxx saves a lot of hours of instrument training. It saved me £ 4 digits off my IMCR training, easily. Even with the cheapest joystick it works just fine for this purpose.
The thing is that one should never get airborne without having practiced everything one will be doing, in the sim first. If one cannot do it in the sim, one won't be able to do it in the air (with the radio etc) and the flight will be mostly wasted.
However, few schools would agree with this approach
