Some say that cheap sims are pointless....
Microsoft, X plane etc, are bloody great tools, and they can be adapted to just about any type you like, you can even get instrument panels designed that specifically match your fleet.
As lexair says, its a shame they have zero recognition. I personally used MS flightsim throughout my training, if only to get my checks and routines working the way they should, all valuable.
The sims out there, and their ease of reconfiguration needs to be recognised, to make the most dangerous of testing safer. In this day and age, there is little, if any need to undertake high risk training in the air. At worst, I would agree to doing it once in the air to show the mind that what you learnt in the sim is actually how it really happens...and that would only be AFTER you achieve standard in the sim.
Puff mentions the Air North one, and it raised a tear for me. My friend was on that flight. He had just returned from melbourne, setting up the Sim training for type. He was to be the last to do the routine in a real aeroplane, and that ultimately proved true.
---------------------
The other thing puff mentions, is the fact that CASA might finally recognise how dangerous this stuff can be. The real danger is that they put an immediate halt to such flights with no alternative way forward in the short term.....
How many operators would that ground?
Safer skies are empty skies
