I’ve got some real paper aeronautical charts, measuring tools and a CRP-1 flight computer (to calculate wind drift, heading alterations, fuel consumption, times etc).
Is the simulator good enough (including weather simulation) to do a proper pilot log, flight plan etc using these real world tools?
Yes. I’ve used the sim in preparation for a real world cross-country flight. It’s great for VFR because you can actually make out landmarks in the sim.
Yes! One of the very first things I did in MSFS after it launched in 2020 was to virtually re-fly a real cross-country flight I had flown IRL back when I was a trainee solo student pilot. Using a real paper VFR chart, I could fly a triangle route between airports A → B → C → A by dead reckoning (true heading corrected for magnetic variation, compass deviation, and crosswind) and verifying my position using landmarks from my map that also showed up in the sim.