I’ve been using the “fly and die” method since subLogic on a C64.
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used to subscribe to a UK magazine PC PILOT that came out monthly.
Amongst talking about sims, add-ons etc, it had a section that went into various aspects of IFR lying in detail. One week might be reading approach charts, the next explain beacons etc etc. Modern version would be finding a decent youtube channels
Honestly… I can’t understate the influence from Air Crash Investigations. The level of detail they go into flight procedures and systems is incredible. Frankly I know more about flight systems based on stories of failures relating to those systems and why they are important. After watching enough episodes you can begin to spot the errors and reasons for crashes before they are spelled out by the doco.
then cleaning it all up, refining the procedures via checklists and listening to actual pilots and yt cockpit vids, especially landing procedures
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Along the same lines I can highly recommend this series: Air Disaster (3 book series) Kindle Edition (amazon.com)
Amazingly well written and well researched and I learned so much from these when they were first released. Or, to go directly to the source:
Aviation Accident Reports (ntsb.gov)
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Rod Machado.
I miss that guy 
.
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There are very few NDB’s left within 40 miles of Boston. North of Manchester, NH, most of those are there and are used in approaches, but, south of there, there are very few. I’m sad they are gone. I enjoy using radio navigation. When I learned to fly (mid-nineties), GPS was very much in its infancy, so I radio navigation was all I learned. And I really enjoyed the challenge of it (and feared hand flying holding patterns blind). Then I left flying in 2001, learning how to use GPS since I got back into flying two months ago has been… interesting 
I worry about the day our satellites are taken out by a large disturbance from our sun. Hopefully most airliners have some sort of backup system (although, it’s not like they’ll all come crashing to the ground…). Then again, it’s likely the VOR’s and NDB’s would be taken out by that, too…
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There are human sources out there for teaching sim pilots IFR. There are people on, for instance, Boston Virtual ATC who do training. WINGS Introduction - Boston Virtual ARTCC
And there are many other sources on line if you search for them, people who give their time or who you can hire. e.g. https://www.pilotedge.net/
And, yes, I like corporatepilotdad, too
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Even the C152 is a great plane to start in. Two Nav gauges with ILS and NDB (no DME). It’s nice and slow so you have time to get your bearings (pun intended), not a lot of systems to distract you, no autopilot so you have to do everything yourself, nice simple platform to learn in.
After you’ve gotten some training in one of the human run ATC groups, you can get some charts and start practicing on your own. A neat tool to use that’s free to start with (they would appreciate a small donation if you start using it to help maintain the servers for the charts and other data) if you’ve got an android tablet or phone is Avare. It has up to date NOAA charts and supplemental data and more for at least the US, you can update them for free every month. I wrote up instructions for how to use it with MSFS here. Of course there’s also Navigraph; I haven’t used it so I can’t speak to it. I use Avare for flight planning and as a backup GPS when I fly for real, too. I know people in Europe use it for flying, too, but I don’t know where they get the charts from. There is an Avare user group out there.
Make sure you have a good way to trim the plane though so you’re not worried about maintaining altitude. I set up the throttle axis on my Logitech Extreme3D Pro joystick as a trim axis (-100% - +100%, don’t use the other one), and it’s made flying soooo much easier (I’m not much of an autopilot user, I prefer to fly by hand like I do for real in Cherokees), much closer to real life. Granted I have experience trimming real planes, so, there’s something else to pick up, but, it’s not hard. It is a little sensitive, but, you can get it right on, as opposed to trying to set up buttons to move it up and down which is impossible to get right.
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Thanks for the shoutout! I meant I like thecorporatepilotdad, too.
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agree… getting used to VOR NDB inputs ands radials is best learned SLOWly
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PilotEdge has an exhaustive supply of YouTube videos on EVERYTHING. PilotEdge is an application / service that provides an ATC system and works with X-Plane and the MS sims. They employ real air traffic controllers and their coverage includes US airports in every airspace category. They have “ratings” for every VFR level and for every IFR level, suitable for GA planes all the way up to airliners.
The service is expensive (over $300 per year), so it is intended for real pilots to learn and practice or for serious sim pilots who wants the aviation experience to be “as real as it gets”.
BUT, the training videos, workshops, and demo rating flights are free to all. Go to their web site for more info.
FS2000 to FSX had an extensive flight school by Rod Machado. That is how I learned. It would be worth it to catch FSX:SE on sale just for the flight school.
At some point the FAA started putting their publications online.
Forums and newsgroups.
Pre internet I’m betting mostly books and talking to people.
Now we have Youtube and Twitch.
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