subtly over time his flying memory has been replaced with a sim handling memory.
Agreed that practising airplane handling with a PC sim (as much fun as simming is) is nowhere near a substitute for the real thing, even if you have a good joystick/yoke and rudder pedals. And any differences in "realism" between MSFS (with good add-on aircraft) and X-Plane (or Rise of Flight for WWI airplanes
) are IMHO completely irrelevant.
But for practising dead reckoning, flying headings, identifying landmarks (provided you have a realistic scenery) and getting to know how the landscape in your neck of the woods roughly looks from above, I maintain that besides being fun and a cheap alternative to the real thing, PC flight sims (ideally combined with a watch, a map and nav preparation as if going for a real flight) have their value.