Sorry about being vague. When I said that MS Flight Simulator isn't a real simulator, what I was referring to is the way it imitates a real plane. The makers first created a model, and then defined it's flight characteristics based on the real plane. What X-Plane does is to determine the flight characteristics from the model itself. Meaning that the parts of the plane that do various things are what actually cause the actions in X-Plane. In MSFS, when you pull back on the joystick, the game does two things. It animates the elevator, and causes the plane to pull up. In X-Plane though, the game raises the elevator, which changes the shape of the plane. The resulting change in shape causes the forces acting on the aircraft to change, resulting in a change in its flight path.