I beg to disagree. I got introduced to brand new (to me) physics of flying airplanes by MS flight simulator. None of the rules I knew in real life applied (gravity matters only sometimes, height can be traded for speed etc). Yet learned how to fly.

And when I took real classes in a real Cessna, this experience was transferable (aka the flying model I had in my brain was very similar to the one I experienced with my full body in the cockpit).