Chevy,
earlier you asked about simulators. They are a fantastic tool for a lot of things but dont quite replace the value of real flight. They can however, teach you how to fly almost completely. I have seen a lot of new pilots that come to me and tell me that they have spent a lot of time on the sim but have never flown. Every single time I have heard that, the student has already learned basic upright flight orientation and after the initial shock of flying in a real 3 dimensional world they quickly are able to perform in the real world what they were able to do on the sim.

For me, the simulator is a great platform for learning new things without risk. I learned to fly the old fashioned way with an instructor, but 2 years later I got Aerofly Pro Deluxe and in 2-3 months after I got my simulator my skills improved 10 fold. I went from a guy who flew reasonably well but really had not completely mastered the rudder, to being able to perform low altitude high alpha 3D maneuvers relatively cleanly and with confidence. I also learned to do a lot of difficult maneuvers like rolling circles of several different varieties, misc geometric maneuvers with integrated rolls, just all sorts of stuff. I'm not talking about just muddling through, but perform them reasonably well. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like the simulator took literally years off of the learning curve for me. I think if you spend the time, it will take years of anyones learning curve.

With a sim you can immediately see and then correct your mistakes, You can make mistakes, crash, and 5 seconds later you are back in the air correcting what you did wrong on the last flight.. At the field you may get 3-4 10-15 minute flights in a day, Thats a grand total of 60 minutes, much of which is spent taking off and landing and in short bursts. On the sim you can fly continuously without having to rest and can rack up a ton of repetitions on a maneuver without the worries of running out of fuel, crashing or wondering if your wife is mad at you because you are late for dinner.

I would say that the simulator has easily saved me $20000 in crashes, and again cut literally years off of the learning curve, allowing me to do what I only dreamed of being able to do before.