A great way to enhance your flying skills is through a flight simulator. Airline pilots do it on multi-million dollar purpose-built simulators when retraining or transitioning to a new aircraft type. But you can do it at home on your laptop too!

These pictures are from X-Plane, which is arguably the most realistic flight simulator in terms of handling and avionics. It comes out of the box with eighteen aircraft including the Cessna 172SP.

It’s ideal for practising the effects of controls as a new pilot, instrument navigation, and even emergency procedures.

So choose an airport, add some weather, dial in your next navaid (because GPS is cheating!) and start flying. When you’re ready for the real thing, we’ll be waiting for you.

If it all looks a bit imposing and you’re unsure where to start, there’s even a forum that will teach you the basics: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/forum/90-sim-ppl-learn-to-fly/