There should be absolutely no reason why anyone who has been training exclusively with a Piper Cherokee flight simulator could not make the smooth transition to flying an actual real life Piper Cherokee aircraft.
The entire instrument panel of an actual Piper Cherokee is available in a simulator program, a precise replica down to the minutest detail, including even the Piper logo.
Not only does the simulation look just like the real Piper aircraft. It behaves just like one too. The manner in which the aircraft performs in a simulation is exactly the way its real life counterpart performs during real flight. Aircraft performance, flight aerodynamics, the aircraft’s response to external weather conditions, and even weight, balance, and G-forces are all mimicked perfectly.
The wonderful thing about a flight simulator is that it teaches you all of the fundamentals of flight. So when you are ready to make the transition to the real airplane, you will already have a head start. The learning curve will be a lot shallower.
Flight simulators do not necessarily have to be exclusively relegated for use by novice student pilots. They can also most certainly be used by experienced pilots to brush up on their techniques, practice and experiment with various maneuvers, or even to fly “dry runs” of actual cross country flights in the simulator in order to gain familiarity with the route before you actually venture out and fly the route in real life.
The differences between operating a Piper Cherokee flight simulator vs flying its real life counterpart are minor and both can be used interchangeably to help you learn the basic fundamentals of flight.
