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The rule: if you're just flying around looking at scenery, that's tourism, not training. A home sim won't give you real hours or real stick feel. What it does train is the hardest part to practise anywhere else: procedures, scan and decisions under pressure. Fly these 10 drills, score yourself, and repeat until they're boring.

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Before you start

• Sim: X-Plane, a light single (C172 or similar) for drills 1–6, an airliner for 7–10
• Controls: a proper yoke and rudder pedals make a real difference to how habits transfer
• Have the real checklist for your aircraft open, and fly it every time

The 10 drills

1. The perfect circuit. One circuit to a full-stop landing. Target: ±100 ft on downwind, ±5 kt on final, touchdown in the first third.
2. Steep turns. 45° bank, 360° each way. Target: ±100 ft, ±10 kt, roll out within 10° of your heading.
3. Slow flight and stall recovery. Configure, hold minimum speed, then recover from a stall. Target: lose minimal height, no secondary stall.
4. Engine failure after take-off. Ask a friend, or use X-Plane failures set to "random". Target: pitch for best glide immediately, land ahead, no turn-back.
5. Partial panel. Fail the attitude indicator, then fly a full circuit on the remaining instruments. This builds the scan you'll need in IR training.
6. Navigation without the magenta line. Fly a VOR-to-VOR leg, then intercept a radial, using raw data only.
7. ILS x10. Fly the same ILS approach 10 times in a row, hand-flown. Target: within one dot on localiser and glideslope down to minimums. The scan should become automatic, not memorised.
8. Go-around at minimums. Fly the approach and call "go-around" at decision height. Target: the correct sequence every time (power, pitch, flaps, gear) with no hesitation.
9. One emergency, any time. Pick one: engine fire, pressurisation loss or electrical failure. Trigger it at a random point and fly the memory items, then the checklist.
10. New airport cold. Brief an unfamiliar airport from the charts only (approach, missed approach, taxi), then fly it. This is exactly what you'll do on the line.

Score sheet

Duplicate this page (top right → Duplicate) to get your own editable copy.

My setup