Anyway I can’t be a serious simmer because I don’t have a mega sized d ummy to spit out
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“Control Easy” 
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Ladies and gentlemens you can close the topic now, I think we have the winning definition. 
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This is THE BEST and MOST ACCURATE definition…imho !
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ha yes, thats well said, i agree to that,
A simmer without a sense of humor.
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The only way you’d use Flight Simulator for training purposes is if the FAA clears it to be sufficiently accurate enough to prepare a student pilot for real world situations. And probably almost every “serious simmer” on the forums will tell you the game is not even 10% “realistic imitation” in any aspect. We got the planet, we got the airports, but the none of the 40 some odd planes available in game are any more complex than to let a player turn it on, mess with the screens a little and fly it around
We can play pretend all we want and follow as many real world procedures and rules as we feel like, but in the end regardless of how “serious” you are, it’s still a video game and it’s purpose is entertainment
But we training to handle the instruments don’t we? I think someone that has used msfs is more comfortable using the instrument in a real plane than someone never used any kind of sims before.
Allthough I built all this, I still think I am “Casual” Simmer…
Why? I am not too serious and still have some sense of humor (You are so ■■■■ right, @Abriael) 
Nice casual setup. Wish I had one. 
Nope Im sorry, your in denial. If you go to that expense/trouble…sorry but your serious. ;p
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some people like myself just like doing stuff with electronics. I’m a licensed radio amateur, I trained as a radio technician originally in the army - I like to fiddle with soldering irons!
I built myself numerous panels and controls and a nice trim wheel over the last 15 years, but I doubt very much anyone would call me a serious simmer. I also have 3 websites full of guides I made for DCS, FSX and IL-2 so does that make me one? No it doesn’t - because although I spent hours, days and weeks working on the material for those sites, I spent substantially less time actually flying the sims. 
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the most you would get is familiarization. it would not teach you anything about how the plane actually handles. You get an idea but there are so many things that can happen in the real world thats simply not modeled in the game yet (such as what happens if you fly right under a microburst.) A flight simulator needs FAA approval to be used for actual pilot training
Now what’s interesting is several major airlines are starting to waive the 4-year degree requirement to apply to be an airline pilot. What makes me wonder is what would i learn with a 4-year degree that i can’t learn with formal job training when it comes to flying planes. I think in that scenario, a flight simming background would give you a leg up (albeit a tiny one) over some Joe or Jane off the street looking to change careers.
Now i’m not saying you’re not allowed to do stuff in FS2020 that you might do in a Level D simulator, just don’t expect it to give you the same practical experience like in the real thing
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Or maybe CAA or EASA as well
This mythical pilot shortage I’ve been hearing about my entire career looks to finally be here… until the next black swan event tanks the industry again. I really thought covid was gonna be it, but we seem to have survived that pretty well; it really speaks to the skyrocketing level of demand for air travel, coupled with the the lack of qualified pilots (an industry-created debacle of all entry-level jobs paying poverty wages for years, even as the cost of training + degree shot right on past $150,000+. Yeah, that pencils out. 
)
But the degree was never anything but a weeding-out tool. The theory was that it showed some indication that an individual was able to stick with a complex course of study, and successfully complete it. The idea never was that college prepared you for an airline pilot career. True, there are 4 year “professional pilot” degrees at the pilot mills, but they’re just a way to knock out flight training and college at the same time. The reality has always been that you just needed to be able to check the 4 year degree box on an application. A 4 year aviation management degree from Embry Riddle or UND meant precisely nothing in the selection process, in comparison to a philosophy degree from your cheapest state school. Just had to be able to check the box.
I suspect you’ll likely need the degree to be competitive for at least a few more years; this was a way for the airliners to streamline the process for folks with decades of military or corporate jet flying. For the average newbie with a few years of flying an RJ, the degree will still help.
But we might actually be headed in the right direction. I should probably not be bold enough to say that out loud though lol.
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That’s a very bold statement. It takes a lot of training to get the correct phraseology and to know what to say in the correct order without making mistakes. Also I have to disagree. Atc is quite a large part of flying. Atc can change approaches at the last minute and this can make it difficult to keep ahead of the airplane when flying IFR. Its one thing to know how to enter a flight plan but having to change it all up at the last minute can be full on when already on a decent. Not saying you have to use atc to be a serious simmer but i would not describe it as the cherry on top and just for immersion.
…but doesn’t actually fly the sim 
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I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems we’re all making one mistake: treating the terms serious and casual as absolute rather than relative.
As Einstein would’ve put it: “Simmer A may be more serious than simmer B, but simmer C may come along who is more serious than A or more casual than B. Who now is serious, and who is casual? It all depends on your point of view”.
In modern parlance, one man’s serious is another man’s casual.
A classic casual is like a friend of mine described his casual flight sim behaviour yesterday:
Having no knowledge about airplanes (and also does not want to gain any knowledge about or develop any interest in this topic) and just fly around with the simplest possible physics and all damage off to see the own house. And to check if known local locations are looking the same as they look outside the window and in Google Maps…
(And like all good casuals I am sure he is still looking for that difficulty slider in Dark Souls III… 
)
One example of a serious simmer-
if you get excited by the most recent Live Developer Q&A where the new prop modeling is discussed…
you’re probably a serious simmer😊
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