I think it's a great beginner heli! Don't let the "FP crowd" tell you otherwise

But anyway, if you can do all that in a sim, you should do fairly well with the real thing. NO, it's not the same so don't get too confident strictly because of your sim experience....the sim is setup for a perfectly setup heli in ideal conditions. But at a bare minimum, you should be able to hover right off.

Good luck!
Skarn