PVT/INS worked well for me but it did leave behind a lot of garbage I will admit. As for the partial panel I had Henkel so he took away more than would ever fail, he even made me keep the hood on in IMC once. It felt like he used a whole ream of sticky notes every flight.

That's is an incredibly dangerous way to think. I had everything go dark in a G-1000 more than once. Thankfully it happened in VMC.

I attended a FITS seminar in st louis and also worked on multiple SBT (scenario based training) projects in grad school. I have to agree with Pip. You have to walk before you can crawl, the only scenario you can give a person with 5 hrs in an airplane is ..... GOOO! Maneuvers are useful, but as one waterski check airmen told me "i can teach anyone to do a steep turn and talk on the radio, but some guys just cant make a decision"

That's why SBT is valuable, it forces the student to make a decision, live with the consequences, and learn from what happened.

As a flight instructor, i tried my best to mix in maneuvers with real world experiences. The way i look at it, its the command of the aircraft you learn in the maneuvers that allows you to control a single engine go around in a seminole ... and talk on the radio ... and complete the missed approach. Its the scenario that teaches you decision making.

SBT, that's the term I was looking for! I usually didn't teach cross-controlled stalls until a student did the classic over-shoot base-to-final turn. Then I'd take them out to the practice area and show them what "could" happen, especially in the 152!