Dudley Henriques wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
Another point of view:

I learned to fly ten years ago in 1994. I started "flying" sims in the
mid-80s, when they were little more than wire-frame depictions of
flight. (Anyone remember Atari STs?) By the time I could afford real
flight lessons, I had a zillion hours of sim time.

At least partially as a result, I took to flying immediately, and
soloed with just 6.4 hours in my logbook.

Same here. I soloed after 4.5 hours, but in 1984 during
the wire-frame depiction age, and my sim time was all on
one of those thingies (a Sinclair in my case). Didn´t have
zillions of hours on those either, but probably several
dozen.

I definitely had the impression that the sim time helped
a lot right from the beginning, not only with the direction
the controls worked, but things like minding the speed,
keeping the glidepath towards the threshold and other
details. Even managed a landing on my first lesson without
intervention (except verbal) from the instructor.
(Though I am not sure how remarkable or unusual a feat
that is, on a reasonably calm day).

As for other background there was no motorcycling experience
in my case. But I was extremely motivated. And I had been up
in a glider maybe three or four times as a kid and been
allowed to briefly try the controls (some 15 years earlier,
and total time for that cannot have amounted to more than
about half an hour).

This would actually be an interesting subject to see
investigated scientifically. It is so easy to have opinions.
Not that some of the opinions aren't valid and helpful
sometimes, but somehow they can never be totally convincing.

Cheers CV