This is where it all began for me:
F29 Retaliator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Never learned to land it though since you could just bail out over the airfield to complete the missions!
I did buy Falcon 4.0 on PC much much later and never had a clue how to fly it, much like the military aircraft on FSX (if you can work out how to start the engine without the manual, you'll probably be doing better than me!)
I used FSX with a vfr scenery add-on and later added vfr airfields, when I was training. As some other people have suggested it was most useful for navigation rather than handling, though if you plan flights like I do, you'll frequently discover the absence of masts, pylons, towers etc.
It would be a lot better in full 3d. The other thing I noticed was the poor depth of field. Even with high settings, I can get crisp scenery to the horizon but it isn't particularly distinguishable as what it is until much closer, when it is under the nose and all but useless. They're my major gripes with it.
I downloaded a C152 model which was really quite good. I think it was justflight or maybe from the flying school software. It was a free download! It doesn't have a very good radio stack though so no DME like the C152's I used to train in. Made life a bit more difficult.
I can see FSX being much more helpful for instrument flying, and for me I found it helpful for remembering procedures. One of my instructors used to accuse me of just fudging each flight rather than following set procedure, so I started using FSX as an upgrade to mental armchair flying.