Dudley Henriques wrote:
I would respectfully disagree with this analysis based on hundreds of
hours spent working with both primary students, flight instructors,
and Microsoft.
Sims have their use, but if used before solo can actually be
detrimental for various reasons, some of them absolutely critical to
student progress. After solo, and when used with the proper
supervision, the sims have their productive side as well.

Hmmm. That seems to be a stronger statement about pre-solo use than I've
seen you state in the recent past. Or maybe I'm over-extending "pre-solo"
to include "pre-flight-training" that you didn't intend? That is, if time
is split thusly:

Big Bang - birth - simming - initial flight training - solo - PPL -
death - Big Crunch

Then that order is okay so long as simming and pre-solo flight training
don't overlap? Or you believe simming is _only_ a net positive use after
solo and even then only under supervision? Hmmm.

Otherwise your advice appears to be at odds with what Bruce Williams wrote
in his book "Microsoft Flight Simulator as a Training Aid." That is, while
he too says pre-solo simming _can_ be detrimental, it appears he believes
that is not an immutable issue and lays out some guidelines that he
believes can make pre-flight training use a net positive. But I guess that
is not surprising, given that he wrote a book on the subject!

(There seem to be anecdotes posted by people who have felt use of MS Flight
Simulator helped them get a leg-up in their training and others who felt MS
FS actually slowed them down.)