3 hours ago, Janov said:

I would focus on the artificial horizon to read and adjust the attitude of my Bonanza. He made me pick a speck of dirt on the windscreen instead and that way it was much easier to "finetune" attitude for better altitude keeping.

Easy fix - with my students I cover the AH for the entire lesson and show them we can fly in VFR without it. Very useful when teaching basic sequences like straight & level and turning. Even more fun is to cover the ASI as well to truly teach them that Power + Attitude = Performance.

 

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by DavidP

My fried  CFI used to teach Lufthansa cadets in Arizona in Bonanzas. He always laughed telling me how his student  meticulously calculate everything before each flight just to throw everything away as weather changes lol 

 I got also my private  in Arizona. My buddy had blast flying first thing in the morning  - smooth sailing ! Well my checkride was scheduled at 12pm in a mid august at which point I absorbed every single thermal, high density altitude and gusty winds. And yes my calculations I made prior checkride using forecast went all to drain LOL

 Back to the topic: when I was getting my CFI with veteran   FAA examines (who was retiring same year) told me: there is a license to fly and there is a license to teach. One can be excelled pilot but very bad flight instructor and vice versa.

So to me as aviation educator ( not money making time builder ) MSFS visuals represent cutting edge technology that can be very useful for primary training . I have seen numerous cases when my  fellow CFI soloed students who got lost during solo cross country. I even remember one girl who accidentally landed on military airbase confusing it with different airport busting on th way couple airspaces and communication with tower. Lol Flying in urban busy SoCal airspaces adds to it as well!

None of us want to be in pants of those CFIs he could called from FAA. So MSFS visuals IMHO presents an excellent aid for VFR flying and planning. It would save student tons of money for a mock cross country using MSFS before actual flight, impress flight instructor next day and get sign off. 🙂