i dont know.. i have a diffrent but similar opinion.. the sim was what taught me to fly helicopters... i had zero instructor time with them other than every minute of spare time i spent on the sim. and in my opinion, the one i used on the sim flew almost as good as my real one. and i have only been flying since like may of this year. and not very often. i can do the basics in a heli.. hover, forward flight, loops and rolls.... not bad for only haveing like 15 days of total flight time for real. so my opinion differs from above. i make all the people here fly on the sim for awhile before i take them up. first student soloed on his 2nd flight, and ran out of season on my second. but they all did VERY well after spending time on the sim.