X PLANE FLIGHT SIMULATOR SERIES

Unlike a small airplane where you start the engine by turning a key in an ignition switch, in bigger airplanes its a series of knobs and buttons to press, sometimes dependent on certain events during the start. Communicate with ground crew for engine start.Start APU and disconnect ground power and ground air conditioning.Calculate weight and balance, move passengers and/or bags if needed.Get load information from flight attendant/gate agent/dispatch/ramp supervisor.Transition to ground power (GPU) or start the APU for power.Thorough pre-flight walkaround inspection.Before you can start the engines, you need to first power the aircraft and perform your receiving checklists, and if you are the first flight of the day, additional first-flight checks. The only computer sims that capture the level of detail properly are ones like the A-10 simulator by DCS. The only comparable computer simulation of ATC to reality is VATSIM (as mentioned in comments), though it doesn't approach the level of busyness that you'll find in some airspace and airports (with the exception of some of their organized fly-ins).ДЄ transport category jet is also a bit more complicated than 'turn the engines on, release the brakes and go'. You are also operating under ATC, so radio ops are normal. This means flying in the clouds with no reference to anything but instruments, weather as bad as a few hundred feet visibility and strong crosswinds for landing and takeoff are all part of normal ops. An airline pilot is, with few exceptions, always operating under instrument flight rules (IFR). Since you ask about airline flying for your comparison, there is a lot more to that than just the flying. In fact, when coupled with certified hardware and a CFI, X-Plane can power a sim that you can actually log FTD time in. X-Plane is a much truer simulation of flying than that flight game Microsoft used to make.

X plane flight simulator