Originally Posted by
155mm
There are many useful scenarios available to practice on the Flight Sim even at the Private Pilot level. Tune, ID and proceed direct to the VOR, track a radial, clearing turns, steep turns, perhaps even some approach to landing, departure stalls and recovery. You can even practice the cross country flight beforehand or familiarize yourself with the class B airspace beforehand. In addition, you can have the POH out and just keep the sim running with the park brake set and go over cockpit setup, fire during engine start procedure and other static training scenarios at no cost! It's just an idea to integrate and practice procedurally what one was taught and perhaps clarify concepts.
At PPL, only very limited instrument procedures.
Doing any sort of VFR manuevers is counter-productive... there's a reason airlines use multi-million level D sims for that kind of thing.
It would be useful as a procedures trainer if everything is in the same place. Otherwise, just sit in the cockpit of the real plane when nobodies using it. You don't get charged for turning the master on.