Not to start an argument, but the original question really points us to a matter of opinions. That being said, an answer of "nope" or "no" is definitely biased and I bet comes from people who have never tried phoenix. I've played both phoenix and real flight a fair amount and in all honesty, I feel like I'm playing with a video game from an old SuperNES when I use realflight. They can both accomplish the same thing from a learning standpoint, phoenix does so while looking and feeling so much better imo. RF definitely has more options for training and demos etc but I'm more after the physics and feel than that stuff.

Phoenix has my vote hands down and I'll bet you feel the same if you go with it.