writes:

The view looks like a flat screen and there is no peripherial view.

Look up TrackIR.

The physical sensations of a downdraft are real in real airplanes and you
have to learn to deal with them to fly real airplanes.

That's about 0.000001% of what you have to learn to deal with to fly
airplanes, and a great deal of what you have to learn (the great majority, in
fact) has nothing to do with physical sensations.

Maybe if you're puttering around in a biplane you might depend a lot on
sensations. But in a 747 you don't use them at all. Large aircraft are flown
by the numbers, for the most part.

Yes spins are still taught, they are just not a requirement for private.

So spins are not taught for a PPL, QED.

Sure if you have a 360 degree wrap around display.

No, you can also have a display that changes what it shows based on your head
movements. It works extremely well.

Do you?

I don't care enough about the virtual cockpit view to use such add-ons. I can
"turn my head" left and right with a twist of the joystick if I need to look
around. I fly in IMC a fair amount so often there's nothing to look at except
the instrument panel.

Since it is all on a small (compared to even a C150 panel) 2 dimensional flat
screen, only someone delusional could not immediately tell it is a display.

It can fool both pilots and non-pilots. Sims have come a long way since the
old days.