First Flying Lesson in Cessna 172 at Centennial Airport KAPA with Aspen Flying Club: ep. 2

I have been a flight sim enthusiast for a long time and for the past several years used X-Plane in VR with yoke and pedals and with Pilotedge live ATC. I finally decided to see how close the sim is to real life and start working toward a private pilot license. This is my first flying lesson. A crosswind made takeoff and landing "interesting". We did some simple maneuvers and slow flight. So, how flying a real plane compare to the sim? Instruments, radio, etc. (systems) are exactly the same and the sim experience was very helpful. Pilotedge ATC was extremely helpful and talking to ATC at Centennial airport was very, very similar to Pilotedge ATC so that was super helpful and gave me a lot of confidence. Flying the plane - well it felt very different and in the real plane you get the physical sensation of getting pushed around by the wind, which you don't get in sim. However, it is still helpful to have flown in sim and see the results of your control actions. So - is sim experience helpful? Yes, especially knowing how to use the systems, read instruments and talk to ATC. It is also somewhat helpful for controlling the plane, but definitely less so.