Congratulations Phil !
Watch out, aerovirus are way more contagious and virulent than coronavirus! That grin on your face is a typical symptom!
One could draw long listings of simmers that went to real flying after eventually pushing the door of the next air-club. I'm one of these and I cheer the memories of that late afternoon some 12 years ago when I climbed for the very first time aboard a venerable WWII Piper L4 and flew her by myself with an instructor just giving directions and ready to take over whenever something went wrong, but he never touched the controls... One year later I had my PPL.
The opposite way is more seldom despite a sim definitely can bring much to a pilot, but there's a strong generational effect coupled with usually a very conservative mindset towards novelty,
Regarding whether you can learn to fly with a sim whichever it is, the answer is a mix of yes and no. You'll never replace real flight hours by simming, but you can build up a real, sound aeronautical culture that'll be helpful.
What you'll ever miss in a sim are the feelings of flight that no sim can recreate, even moving platforms and force feedback. That's the most disturbing aspect when you start learning to fly for real after years of simming, but you quickly get used to it. In many ways flying for real is easier to me than in the sim, because I feel exactly how much pressure I need to apply on that pedal/stick, while in the sim I apply a force against a fix spring without relationship with flight physics.
It's therefore seldom the case that a simulator's aim is to learn how to handle an aircraft.
Holding the aircraft in flight is the pilot's top priority, but that's not a task that requests much brain skills. It's quite like bicycle, once you've learned you never really loose it. Flying is not solely about that. The pilot's job is to manage all aspects of his flight : aviate, navigate, communicate => manage the flight from A to Z, keep situation awareness.
All those tasks request a lots of pilot's attention and skills, while holding the aircraft in flight should really be a background routine that don't request much brain CPU. That's what you train in the first hours of PPL preparation.
Most "flight management" tasks request frequent training to keep fluent and up-to-date, and that's where a simulator can be very helpful if used properly.
Back to your flight with an instructor. That's typically what we call initiation flight and the goal is really that the person to initiate gets a feel of the aircraft and how to handle her. Now, how much the instructor let's you do really during initiation flight very much depends on alchemy, how s/he "feels" you.
One of the first tests is ground taxi where the instructor will gauge you. Nobody'll expect you to taxi perfectly the aircraft, you're not supposed to know how to do it, but the instructor will give you directions and wants to check how good he can establish contact with you, how you react, how you handle...
Unless touchy conditions, there are not much risks to let a "newbie" takeoff such basic instruction aircraft. The instructor can easily correct whenever you do something wrong,
Ideally, the instructor wants to feel like s/he's remote-controlling you.
In my case, he just told me "keep the stick to your belly (TW aircraft) and aim to a point you see ahead of you, a cloud or whatever, you'll gently apply full throttle and keep aligned with the feet. Expect to apply right foot, enough but not too much. When the aircraft rolls, you gently bring back the stick to center point, but never beyond. The aircraft will takeoff by her own..."
After some 20 minutes flight, the first landing was a nice 3-point on grass. The second was not so nice, ideal to remember that's where the pilot's real job starts in a Piper L4...
But in many cases the instructor doesn't let you do as much in initiation flights. Not necessarily that you behave bad, but some instructor don't feel so good with it. Anyway, if the person then registers for learning to fly, the instructor will sooner or later have to give you the controls... so better start early and gauge whether there is potential or if the candidate should rather turn towards knitting...
You can have as many initiation flights as you want, even if you dont intend to go for a Licence (In my case, after the first flight with the L4 I then test flew different aircraft of the air-club to select the type I'd choose for learning), and in case you decide to go ahead with learning, initiation flights may be recorded as instruction in your logbook.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I strongly recommend initiation flight to anyone, even without plans to go any further. They're very affordable and worth the money.
Cheers
Antoine
