http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs
But it's pretty challenging. Today's simulators are pretty good, but there's something about having your life actually on the line that can't be captured by a sim.
Yes, a common experience. Landing and taking off involve some subtle things that most simulators don't capture, like the fact that in a small propeller-drive plane, at slow speed, the propeller torque twists the body of the airplane, so you have to apply some counter-rudder to straighten out the fuselage and maximize climbing efficiency.
And landing has risks that simulators certainly don't capture, like the all-too-common stall-spin on final approach, which turns out to represent a high percentage of all GA accidents. Most simulators won't even imitate this common problem -- in most simulators you can't force the plane into a spin, either at altitude or while landing. That by itself might make a student overconfident about how much he's learned.
In reality, a student or new pilot turns too slow on final, realizes he's not lined up, so he banks too steeply and applies some aggressive rudder, which causes the inboard wing to stall, then unless the pilot knows exactly what to do and does it instantly, the plane will stall-spin, do a 1/4 turn and hit the ground before an inexperienced pilot can react. A very common accident scenario.
The biggest differnces I figure between real life and the simulator are the acceleraion, the sense of moving very fast and the fear of dying.
But the absence of body accelerations in a simulator is a big obstacle standing in the way of realism. Big, expensive simulators have a cockpit mounted on hydraulic actuators to partially address this issue -- the cockpit moves around to provide some accelerations and try to improve the subjective sense of being in motion.