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It is not the tool it is how you use it. I used X-plane with VR and I had a yoke and peddles, etc. Cost me a couple thousand. It more than paid for itself. My training flights were about once a week but sometimes only once a month due to scheduling and weather. Whatever my lesson was one day in the real plane I would go home and do that lesson over and over again, radio calls, etc till next lesson; if I knew what the next lesson was going to cover I would also practice that... My instructor thought I was a flight prodigy and turns out I just practiced a lot...but I couldn't have done that without the sim.