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.
It's generally a bad idea because it doesn't teach the actual visual pitch attitudes for those maneuvers. What pitch reference do you use for steep turns, what bank reference? What is your (visual) pitch attitude at right now, without looking at the AI? All of those visual maneuvers require visual references, which this will not teach. It could be of some use for navigation and some other things, but the motor skills hinge on tactile and the visual pitch/aircraft control.