Yes for instrument flying, but I would avoid it for your private pilot's license (PPL - first license).
Your PPL is mostly about "feeling" the airplane and looking outside the window, not inside the plane at your instrument cluster. You'll pick up more bad habits than good from flying in a sim for your PPL. It's not that these bad habits can't be fixed, but it'll likely actually _add_ time to fix them.
After you have your private license, by all means, use a sim to help you get familiar with an unfamiliar route/airport/etc. I'll often even watch YouTube videos of landings at airports I'm not familiar with.
For your instrument rating a good sim can actually be quite helpful. You're exclusively looking inside the plane, setting up radios, approaches, VORs, GPS, etc. Having an intimate familiarity with how your various automations work can help.
I'm no expert myself but recently I did see a flight instructor on youtube with the opposite opinion, saying that people with a lot of flight sim experience were his best beginner students, and tended to get their PPL in the fewest hours.
I’d disagree having used both there is a step change in perception between TrackIR and VR. It’s the difference in peering through a window that doesn’t move 1:1 with your head movements versus sitting in the cockpit.
Some anecdata here. I got to fly in a combat sim for few hours and the operators were surprised at some of the things I knew how to do just from playing videogames in the past. I do agree with the grandparent that it won't help with feel, but I also think that it will help build a knowledge base that can be a useful starting point.
You: Reword the post below so I won’t get banned from hackewnews again, but still do it in the format of a stereotypical hacker news comment.
I wish people would stop using the word anecdata like it is correct just because they saw some arrogant self important reply using it in their hackernews comment.
Firstly it is anecdote so the plural would be anecdotes or if you want to continue with being weird, it’s anecdota.
Do the red squiggly lines not direct you at all to thinking “maybe this is wrong”.
Secondly invariably when someone (wrongly) uses the word “anecdata” they only ever produce a paragraph relating to one specific point of view - their own.
ChatGPT: It's intriguing to observe the evolution of language in tech communities, particularly on Hacker News. For instance, the term 'anecdata' seems to be gaining traction, though its usage diverges from conventional language norms. Traditionally, 'anecdote' is the singular form, with 'anecdotes' or perhaps 'anecdota' as a more esoteric plural. It's always beneficial to pay heed to the cues from our writing tools, like the spellchecker's red squiggly lines, as they often guide us toward standard language practices. Furthermore, it's worth noting that discussions enriched by diverse perspectives are more insightful. While 'anecdata' typically encapsulates a singular viewpoint, embracing a variety of experiences could enhance the richness of our conversations here.
Fortunately, that’s not how language works. When a lot of people use a word a certain way, that defines it as cromulent. Everyone knows the browser spell-checkers are 1) incomplete and rather mid, and 2) sometimes to be deliberately ignored when writing, because it doesn’t have any of the portmanteaus I like to use.
Anecdata is different from the plural of anecdote, it can be used correctly and more aptly than “anecdotes” in situations where the alternative is statistical evidence, which is common here on HN. It can also be used for fun in any situation the writer deems, because that’s acceptable use of English (cf. Lewis Carroll).
Maybe take the last clause of ChatGPT’s prosocial answer to heart, and embrace a variety of experiences. Language, especially English, is really fluid and fun when you learn how to use it. There are almost no language police nit-pick meme talking points that are actually correct. Literally has always meant figurative, myriad can be correctly preceded with “a” and followed with “of”, “less” and “fewer” can be used interchangeably in any situation, etc. etc.. Invariably when someone tries to go edgelord and get on their high horse about their pet English annoyance, they’re actually wrong.
(Valid dictionary words I used that give me red squiggles and/or spelling suggestions: anecdata, edgelord, merriam-webster, OED, prosocial, mid, nit-pick.)
Hahaha. I think you’re wrong again, so please, by all means, elaborate. What’s incorrect, and what would be correct alternatives? You know I was referring to a specific famous poem there, right? Feel free to consult a definition and let me know specifically how my use fails to fit. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cf
Like your mistake with anecdata, it can be hard to say when something in English is incorrect, which is why it’s not just boring and unimaginative to police language, it’s ironically so often wrong to make such claims. Dictionaries can only provides examples of usage, they cannot prescribe incorrect usage.
Hahaha I guess so! Would you rather I didn’t vouch for your comments and ignored you instead? What language did I police, exactly? What would you like to discuss instead? Maybe I’m starting to see why you’re shadow banned? Happy holidays my friend! Language is fun, there’s no good reason to complain about how it’s used, and it doesn’t help, and there are good reasons to avoid making assumptions and trying to claim that people are incorrect, especially when it’s you who’s wrong and you don’t know it. Just sayin’. Enjoy English and all its weirdness, learn to play with it and let others play with it. That’s how works and how it’s supposed to work. Fighting it will just leave you unhappy.
They’ll have explicit knowledge (what the takeoff speed is and where the speed dial is), but probably lack tacit knowledge (what that speed feels like, or what ground effect feels like). Acquiring a PPL in the fewest hours isn’t necessarily the best metric if it means they’re finding shortcuts with their explicit knowledge.
The problem is theory can be detrimental to real world practice. You may not know how to properly integrate the knowledge you have with what are you trying to learn.
That's not really true, or is at least unclear. The FAA allows time logged in approved simulators to be counted toward an instrument rating, for instance, up to a limit.
The US Army make use of simulators when training their helicopter pilots, as it enables their trainees to meet test standards with fewer hours spent in real aircraft. [0]
Except that not every hour is the same. Flying straight and level following a GPS track with no relevant weather or traffic anywhere near accumulates a different kind of experience than other kinds of situations (bad weather, complex airspace, other traffic, ...).
Number of landings is probably more relevant for survival.
If you don't understand why that's bad, look up the 2009 crash of Air France 447, when a pilot made an error that should have been impossible to make with any kind of flight training and killed 228 people.
That pilot pulled back constantly on the stick, costing him speed, eventually stalling the plane. He kept pulling back on the stick as the plane fell like a rock despite maximum thrust. He actually overrode the input of the other pilot that tried to pitch down to regain speed and recover from the stall. By the time the captain showed up and diagnosed the situation, they no longer had the altitude to trade for the necessary speed to recover.
Look I'm no expert but even Ace Combat taught me not to do that. To say nothing of simulators where you actually learn concepts like energy management. Planes are not rockets.
Wow that's a tragic story, and it's rather maddening that the junior pilot didn't properly hand over the steering when asked to. 3 minutes of bad decision making and panicking.. ouch.
While he did do this, the UX of the plane was just asking for disaster. Averaging the inputs of the two sticks when they disagree is an... interesting decision, and the fact that the stall warning could go off when they had stall prevention on, desensitizing pilots to the warning when it was actually warranted, was a disaster as well.
A worryingly similar incident happened last year (AF011) on a Boeing 777, where two Air France pilots were fighting each others’ yoke inputs.
Not to say the Airbus UX isn’t a problem, but one of the most basic things in dual pilot flying is being explicit about who has the controls. Once that basic level of situational awareness is lost, it’s going to be hard to maintain control.
Certainly, by the time you are piloting for Air France, you'll have had so much training and experience that whether you used a flight simulator before getting your first pilot's license is irrelevant.
Not to mention that the flight simulators for large passenger aircraft are far more advanced than anything you can buy as a consumer, let alone download to a PC. Their physics simulations are advanced enough to use in crash investigations to simulate possible failure scenarios. Their use in training airline pilots is mandatory, not detrimental.
It costs at least $1.5 million. It's ~150x cheaper than the plane and since zero lives at risk, US airline pilots are required to train emergencies in simulators while being accessed by an examiner every six months (IIRC).
For general aviation though, nothing that powerful is available, but you can log training hours on an FAA-certified simulator running the pro version of X-plane.
I’m fairly certain most of the cost there is in the machinery. The software should be more or less comparable (there’s no reason for it not to be anyway).
> I’m fairly certain most of the cost there is in the machinery.
Why are you so certain?
While the hardware isn't exactly cheap, neither is the software. Gathering feedback from a bunch of pilots and incorporating it into the simulator isn't cheap. Renting out an A330 and a couple of pilots to run experimental validation isn't cheap - it costs >$50k an hour and you'll need hundreds if not thousands of hours. Validating each software release isn't cheap.
*> The software should be more or less comparable (there’s no reason for it not to be anyway).
I'm working on second hand info but AFAIK it takes over a dozen modern networked server systems to provide the fidelity the simulators need (with multiple GPUs no less). The software isn't comparable simply because a consumer machine isn't powerful enough to run the real stuff and the quality of the simulators has absolutely sky rocketed in the last 20 years. The've been constantly upgraded to the point that a 747 simulator now costs more than the plane itself.
I think this is more a selection effect than anything. People who spend lots of time in simulators are more likely to know what a stall is and how an incipient spin looks than someone who is completely new to flying.
I saw a similar comment a few times. The cynic inside of me asks: Why do they say that? To convey that they are experienced experts (which they may not be), and that people book more hours than necessary if "a lot of sim experience".
From what I can gather, sim experience can be a mixed bag -- some positive, some negative.
I did a lot of flight sims before getting my PPL about 15 years ago and I did not feel that the sim hurt my progress at all.
It did not help much either.
For me the first real flying was very overwhelming as so many things were happening and had to be taken into account. Luckily my instructor was good and took the load that I didn’t yet need to handle and then I gradually prioritized and got familiar.
As others have pointed out the feel of the plane is just not there in a sim.
I’d even say that things like trim I did not fully understand until in the plane, what a difference it makes and how much less tired you are after.
> I'd even say that things like trim I did not fully understand until in the plane, what a difference it makes and how much less tired you are after.
I have only flown in a sim ut I understand from other activities in life that stick pressure can be a lot if you're not trimmed properly, but is arm fatigue really the main point of trim?
Isn't the main point of trim to configure the plane's pitch stability to maintain the appropriate angle of attack, and any effects on arm fatigue more of a side effect?
I'd say this post is a really good example of the diff between sim and real plane.
Trim feels academic in a sim. Your stick is so light, it feels like a tiny convinience. But in a badly trimmed real plane you arent flying as much as arm wrestling.
A good pilot understands that they-the fallible human-are usually the most important component in a plane. Wrestling with the elevator for two hours on a cross country is one great way to ensure that pilot is not operating at full capability. Hell, its a great way to ensure you are behind the plane from the very first moments of takeoff in some planes.
Its so obvious in real life as to be undebatable. Trim the plane! The academics of AoA are irrelvant to an exhausted pilot.
> Trim feels academic in a sim. Your stick is so light, it feels like a tiny convinience.
But to me (a sim user) maintaining AoA stability does not feel "like a tiny convenience". It's critical to maintaining stable flight in a desirable condition.
It's not academic; it's highly practical. Not because it alleviates arm fatigue, of course, but because stable flight is nearly impossible without it -- especially during higher-workload moments.
The idea that you can fly properly without trimming for AoA seems to me like a caricatured view of simulator flight.
Compare it to using a driving simulator before taking actual driving lessons. Yes, it might give you a slight edge, but the real thing is so much different and is so immersive that a simulator's added value is mostly for experienced users and not so much for beginners.
I realise US driving lessons are rather different from driving lessons around here. Around here, the goal of driving lessons is (basically) to reduce cognitive load so that you can spend attention on what's happening outside. A steer, pedals, and stick setup would already help enormously with this. Once the student reaches minimal automation, there's no bearing real-world experience though.
So, basically, your argument makes a strong case that simulation is excellent for absolute beginners.
When you’re flying VFR, you need to be able to feel where the plane is going and how your inputs are received. Your eyes should be outside 95% of the time, also because you also need to be looking out for traffic.
Using a simulator doesn’t let you build that feel, so you end up spending a lot of time looking at the instruments. When you step into a real plane that can make things difficult, as you’re supposed to be able to maintain altitude by just looking outside, etc.
What if you train with instruments obscured? Wouldn't a flight sim user then learn to feel the plane just as fast as or faster than someone green to flying?
Essentially, if the problem is that the instruments are used as a crutch, isn't it "just" a matter of taking the cructch away for a while?
You still need critical instruments such as airspeed, RPM, manifold pressure, etc. Especially on crystal clear VFR days, it's possible-bordering-on-easy to fly the plane with your head stuck in the instrument panel and being mostly aware of the horizon in your peripheral if, for example, the instructor obscures the attitude indicator.
You can't even "feel" the plane in FAA-certified simulators, so I'm not sure how you'd feel it on a laptop with a joystick and plastic rudders. And of course the big issue - if you're VFR you need to be looking for traffic because nobody is handling separation for you except you.
Because whilst during training you should be spending 95% of your time looking out the window, the remaining 5% are spent bashing it into your head how to do an effective instrument scan and also there are parts of training where instruments get combined with the outside environment (such as learning to get a radio fix if you're lost and correlating that with what you see out the window).
Obscuring instruments is sometimes done, but that's much, much, later down the training line.
I think it's really hard to put a purely monetary value on YC, but I think it definitely does a disservice to say that the program only adds $5-10M worth of value.
If you speak to YC alumni, you'll hear from many of them that YC made them dream bigger. There's a founder in the comments here who said YC was an "ambition multiplier" for him[1]. How do you value that?
right, sure, that is a huge value. but it's not, for example, $1B worth of value. should John Carmack do YC? no. etc.
the goal of rational decisionmaking is to try to convert all factors into some kind of comparable numbers, and $ is just one utility function on which to project all these nonmonetary qualities. call it "utils" if you like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility#Cardinal).
so fair point if you disagree with 5-10m of nonmonetary value equivalent. Is it more like 50m? 100m? what is the lowest you can make the upper bound?
a fun academic question for most, but for me personally, i have been offered a $2-3m seed pre product so that suddenly became a lot more real.
The problem with these monetary estimates is that they involve current valuations, which are probabilistically based on future outcomes, not enterprise value.
PG once formalized YC value prop as average outcome multiplier [1]. Whatever the current valuation, would YC improve your expected outcome over lifetime of the company on 7.5%? If yes, then you should do it.
interesting framing. (and awfully convenient for yc/pg, haha, but fine)
this feels like a second order analogue to the "ideas vs execution" debate - we know that idea is worth ~0, execution worth ~100 - but the harder question is - what is YC-fueled 3 months (where lets say you spend max 24 hours with YC partners/peers/events) + say 1-2 years worth of residual relevant connections worth vs a ~10 year hard grind on your own?
not gonna get the answer here but was fun to contemplate :)
very kind. the silicon valleyite answer is annie duke's thinking in bets. get the book or crank up any of the 3000 podcast interviews she's done.
the realer answer is have about ~16 years of being in love with/thinking about microeconomics. maybe do some math/linear algebra (where you get very used to projecting spaces onto different dimensions), and then make a few high stakes decisions with regards to job negotiations optimizing for cash, salary, learning value, career path, etc.
but dont think for a second i have any of this figured out haha. i just write well.
> “ As far as I know there is no research paper on the topic ... nothing to indicate it actually is a viable solution.”
Come on.
Remora is literally founded from their CTO’s PhD thesis.
From their website: “ Christina pioneered Remora’s technology during her engineering PhD at the University of Michigan, becoming one of the world’s leading experts on mobile carbon capture. She went on to test a mobile carbon capture prototype in the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Lab”
If you Google “Christina Reynolds Carbon Capture” you will get, as a first result, a link to her PhD thesis:
Congrats on the launch, Sameeran! As a non AI/ML engineer, I love the demo page with the pre-populated examples. The idea that anyone can deploy and share ML models through a REST api seems quite cool.
>> At a fundamental level, though, Graham says that the YC experience for startups will largely be unchanged. “A big misconception is that Y Combinator is Paul Graham,” he said. This change, he says, should finally dispel that public perception and build a bigger future for YC modeled in part after organizations that have stood the test of time.
>> “It’s rare for a company to last 100 years, but for a university it’s nothing. The reason for the difference, I think, is that product companies always have in their DNA some assumption about the kind of thing they’re building, and about their market, and that eventually ends up becoming false. But a university is just a nexus of people...people go there because of the people that are there,” he said. “Now, I’m not claiming that Y Combinator is going to last for centuries. But it could.”
last time I've had this conversation with cable execs, it was explained to me that even just de-duping the bits does in fact run into trouble. They have to store a complete copy for you, for your personal use.
So I had the chance to try this at the YC Alumni Demo day at the computer history museum, and it was SUPER cool. Completely wireless and doesn't add any noticeable weight on top of the HTC Vive in general. The ability to walk around the room with a Vive without having that cable tether made the experience truly immersive.
Is the 11ms latency really not bothersome? I'd be concerned about the input latency and the potential for frame rate drops from connection issues etc, especially over longer terms of use.
We have a guy in our office who was heavy VR user, he played for 6 hours, without any complaints. Gamer, with second time VR experience, played during one hour, without any problems. In our team personal record was during 9 hours, we just changed batteries without any problems. It was QA engineer with first in a life time VR experience, and a passion for drawing. Tilt Brush now one of his favorite applications.
I haven't been able to notice it at all. I was standing up, lying down, looking upside down, and doing all sorts of things that would probably make me nauseous (as friends of mine can attest, I get queasy super easily) for ~30 minutes or so, and didn't notice any latency.
If the engineers did their homework then the headset should send a vsync signal back to the console so the software could use dead reckoning to predict where the headset will be. That way it would be relatively immune to longer transmission latencies. Maybe there's a way to do this with the lighthouse tracking, maybe sending the latency measurement between actual and delayed position back through the controllers or something.
Oculus DK2 had a built in latency sensor that measured a coded pixel in the corner of the screen and then fed that back in to the prediction/forward-projection steps. I'm not sure about Vive and Rift CV1. I didn't see anything like it in the iFixit teardowns.
The qualification you listed means reading this article is like asking a fish, how to fish. (Or asking a person what they want in a romantic partner and then doing that.)
Would you take advice on how to fish, from a fish, or a fisherman?
However, this applies to the qualification you listed. Much more impressive is the fact that Garry has closed the Initialized funds (so he's the fishermen, LP's are the fish). For this reason I think that he can do much, much better than the advice given in this article.
That accomplishment (which I read about) is super impressive - it's a $115M fund!
He knows how he closed it, and he knows that it wasn't by following the rules he's just listed for how to catch some fish. He can do better.
I have to stand by my defense of the comment given very swift and definite negative feedback from other people. By mentioning it explicitly, and that I gave it due consideration, I am showing that I am not being a troll or things like that. I could edit it if I felt it was necessary and considered doing so.
More important than mentioning or not mentioning downvotes is the policy of keeping HN a civil place of discussion, and I take a very extreme position, that I feel is justified in this case. I am a bit angry by being mislead in the past regarding how to pitch, and this article repeats many of those highly misleading tips. It's simply misleading. It won't get you an investment. And Garry can do better. (Assuming he is honest.)
I suppose it is possible that he simply is blind to how he is influenced or makes decisions, even when he uses the same things for his own raising activities, also subconsciously.
> Would you take advice on how to fish, from a fish
I think you were joking here, but holy crap yes I would take fishing advice from a fish (provided it was a human-level intelligent fish that spoke english... which if I'm following your metaphor correctly it is in this case)
More generally the issue with "not asking fish how to fish" is it's the exact opposite of how successful companies treat customers. I ask my customers how they liked the product, what they'd change, how they'd sell it to other customers, etc, etc. That isn't an error. It's one of the most effective business improvement tactics I know of.
This is not to say that the information source is unbiased (customers are much less likely to suggest a price hike for example), or particularly skilled at knowing how to address their needs (they'll ask for a "faster horse" when they mean "gasoline engine" to ruin a quote)... but the fact remains that fish (customers or investors) are the best source of information you have.
>I ask my customers how they liked the product, how they'd sell it to other customers, etc, etc
Are you being literal in the second half of your sentence? I, as well as everyone else, has had loads of companies ask me about my opinion as a consumer. I've never had a company ask me "How would you sell this to someone else"? Have you? Do you actually state that question?
The statement "would you ask a fish, how to fish" comes from the dating world. I was tired of not dating despite doing what my women friends told me they wanted, which is wrong. I'll give a personal anecdote. Women looking for serious relationsihps on dating apps will say they will left-swipe or reject someone with just a picture of their nude upper body without a head. That's not what they want to see, they say.
I followed their advice for a while. Then I ignored their advice, I changed my profile picture to a picture of my nude upper body (I'm male) without my head, and shortly thereafter I had a great girlfriend I was in a monogamous relationsihp with, wherein we both deleted our dating accounts shortly after first meeting.
The fact that women say this is not what they want (when asked what they're looking for from 'pitches') is absolutely irrelevant to how to attract and make them happy. This isn't some kind of meta-commentary on consent or anything like that, I am just saying that it doesn't matter that they told me this is not what they want to see. Because it doesn't matter what they say, it matters what htey do.
It doesn't matter what Garry says, it matters what he does, and no, neither he nor anyone else actually invests on the basis of the points he's enumerated in the article. I point this out by showing what it would take to fail any one of these filters.
Also notice how powerful this comment has just become, after I shared a personal story from the dating world. (At least this is my personal judgment/experience - perhaps you don't find it any more convincing than my more rigorous argument upthread.)
> I've never had a company ask me "How would you sell this to someone else"? Have you? Do you actually state that question?
Yes I absolutely ask that question, and have been asked this question. If you hang out around startups, especially ones using Steve Blank's Customer Development Methodology you'll hear it frequently.
> Also notice how powerful this comment has just become, after I shared a personal story from the dating world
I don't know if I agree with powerful. I will say I'm less optimistic about helping you come to a deeper understanding since, well, it sounds like your mind is made up.
The best I can do is: imagine if you, and 7 billion copies of you, were the only people on this planet. Now picture where the above philosophy gets you in terms of global happiness. Perhaps strategies that emphasize communication would do better?
If there were 7 billion copies of me, then the best thing I could do to find out how to sell to them, is to sell to them. Not the best thing would be to ask them. Even more not the best thing would be just to look inside myself.
Garry didn't even relate how pitches he would have said no to got him to say yes - because they 1, used plain-spoken language, or 2, zoomed out, or 3, had a big future, or 4, knew their numbers, or 5, understood something others didn't.
I mean companies he would have said "no" to but these things made him say yes.
Quite simply, these are not the things that make people say yes.
It's a parody, right? But not exactly: many features there were explicitly requested by users.
market research is good and important. Of course I would ask investors what they're interested in, what they think about something, what they would invest in.
But that is not how you get them to invest, and although Garry does know how to get people to invest, he hasn't put it in this article at all.
I suppose the article can be useful if you read it as, "What a YCombinator partner says they want to see from a pitch." Just don't confuse it for the real advise that will get you funded. This isn't it.
> I suppose the article can be useful if you read it as, "What a YCombinator partner says they want to see from a pitch." Just don't confuse it for the real advise that will get you funded. This isn't it.
I was taking Gary's list as "what to focus on if you're interviewing in two days" (ie quite literally "last minute tips" as indicated by his title). Given more time, I agree you should focus on product, team, and traction.
> Garry didn't even relate how pitches he would have said no to got him to say yes - because they 1, used plain-spoken language, or 2, zoomed out, or 3, had a big future, or 4, knew their numbers, or 5, understood something others didn't.
> I mean companies he would have said "no" to but these things made him say yes.
1. Isn't this asking a fish how to fish? :p (Just pointing out we apparently agree; happy to have you on board)
2. I think a fixation on companies that save it in the 9th inning is misplaced. If you're gong to cargo cult from a survivorship biased sample, you may as well pick a group that didn't start off with an error (so imitating "love at first sight" type companies rather than "won me over in the end" type companies).
I saw this a couple days ago too. I took this as indication you need to interpret customer feedback appropriately, not as indication you should avoid customer feedback.
> But that is not how you get them to invest, and although Garry does know how to get people to invest, he hasn't put it in this article at all.
I'm getting the feeling you think getting investment is about a con-men skillset. That hasn't been my experience. A focus on product, team, and traction is almost surely a better use of your time.
good reply but my last-minute tip is "focus on telling a compelling story" (I know I didn't talk much about what tips I would give, but only objected to the tips he did give.)
you are right that where I say he can do better I am asking a fish about fishing - but when he bagged the LP's for his fund (which is a massive and amazing effort) he played the fisherman (I presume.) so I think he's using the wrong role - he's using his role as a fish to talk about how to get fish, rather than using his role as a fisherman, which he also has recent experience with. It would be a more powerful write-up. the Initialized fund is extremely impressive, and it would be interesting to hear how he closed it (assuming that was his role).
Your PPL is mostly about "feeling" the airplane and looking outside the window, not inside the plane at your instrument cluster. You'll pick up more bad habits than good from flying in a sim for your PPL. It's not that these bad habits can't be fixed, but it'll likely actually _add_ time to fix them.
After you have your private license, by all means, use a sim to help you get familiar with an unfamiliar route/airport/etc. I'll often even watch YouTube videos of landings at airports I'm not familiar with.
For your instrument rating a good sim can actually be quite helpful. You're exclusively looking inside the plane, setting up radios, approaches, VORs, GPS, etc. Having an intimate familiarity with how your various automations work can help.