Rob,
 I appreciate your situation, but you may be doing more harm than good. Being in the Army you should know the saying, "Train like you fight". The same goes for a simulator. I stated this above, but I'll say it again. It's very easy to pick up bad habits if you use a simulator without proper training. And the more you use the simulator incorrectly they harder it's going to be to learn correctly later on down the road.

Ken