Nnoodles.... From your descriptions I see you and myself being near identical twins. I've been a competition level PC gamer for years... I'm a techie and can build a complete computer in 8 minutes 30 seconds (during my last computer building tournament) and have modded many computer cases. I started gaming back when the Atari 2600 first come out and I've competed in big money tournaments. I have also volunteered/staff for Quakecon for the past 9 years. Yeah, none of that has anything to do with this post, but I can honestly say that.... My hand and eye coordination is definitely not something that I would EVER blame for crashing a plane or anything else.

I'm just starting to get into this hobby and have never flown a powered aircraft except on Realflight. Like you I can pull off some pretty nice turns, banks, rolls, snaps and near perfect landings on the sim without any issues. I have never flown a powered plane, but this Thursday (hopefully, if this damn rain and wind will stop) I am supposed to buddy box with an instructor. I am afraid that my first experience might end up closely related to yours... I have a question... based on your 4th comment.

"4) I learned that the plane looks like its a good size while on the ground, but for me, it got small fast. Im sure with more flights with an instructor i will overcome this problem easily though.."

I could be completely off here, but based on that comment it sounds like you might have gotten used to having other visual aids on your screen. Like the zoomed window that shows aircraft orientation, or other flight helpers. Did you use the visual aids in the sim and tend to look at them more then your aircraft?

In G3, I force myself to use only the view that keeps an eye on the plane while keeping the ground in view. Just as in real life... I use NO other visual aids... This allows the plane to get extremely small (even with playing on a 65" HDTV) like it would in real life. Doing this has forced me to learn to picture the orientation of the aircraft at all times based purely on the movements of my thumbs. If the plane goes beyond my point of view or around a tree/building I am still able to picture orientation of the aircraft in my head.

I'm just trying to get a feel for what I can expect with my first buddy box, and based on your posts and background experience I can closely relate to you...