DumbDawg,

Phoenix is about 150 bucks and is simply amazing. I felt the same way for the longest time and still couldn't bring myself to shell out for a sim like realflight. I have seen a lot of folks reccomend phoenix so I decided to give it a try and have not regretted it for one second.

Personally, I started without the sim and didn't end up getting it till well after I could hover. I had my share of crashes same as anyone would but looking back I think the sim could have saved me what it cost easily. It's definitely been useful now that I'm playing around with aerobatics.