Remember, no one made fun of the dinosaurs while they were still alive. Your 15 weeks of actual flight time certainly impresses all the heck out of me. Doubtless you've run into every conceivable situation and condition and can relate those from the "real world" to the synthetic plane you have in your controled, distraction free simulated world.

I have FMS and the 2001 version of RCFS (Dave Brown's) and they are certainly helpful. I side with Da Rock that, while they give you a boost in thumb education, they stink at teaching you the other 60% of flying. Trims, balancing, airframe truing, engine installation, tuning and maintenance, battery management, judging wind and weather, testosterone, anrenaline, etc. Testosterone kills lots of planes. Showing off, refusing to admit defeat, backing down from conditions beyond you, bull-headedness, etc.

No matter how convincing a simulator may be your sub-conscious knows the difference and you fly differently. We call it "target panic" and or "buck fever" in archery. Same thing. A teriffic shoty at paper targets falls apart when facing a live deer.

Simulators are great practice, but they're no subsitiute for the real thing. Granted, I've only briefly played with the latest versions, and they're certainly good simulations, but they are still to "canned" and don't prepare you for the dozens of uncontrollable eventualities going on around you at the field. Winds, downdrafts, updrafts, grass height, change in C.G. from fuel consumption, other pilots, bugs,, other pilots bugging you, non-pilots who bug you, sun (never saw a sinulator that has the screen go all white fo 20 seconds when you "look" at the sun), bad fuel, aileron flutter, loose clevis, frustration from bad idle, dead sticks whan it konks out, accumulated battle damage from prior flights, etc.

Granted, having the basics down from simulator time helps you deal with the rest that comes along, but alone they don't make you a pilot.