Nah, you have it pretty spot on! It's been a while since I've flown so I had to relook it up myself for some bits. I think the only part from my experience is the throttle isn't usually so easy to start the plane up. The one I flew was ancient, so you had to sort of ease it in/out like a lawnmower. Pretty hard to put that in a game though!
Random tidbit but most planes have the pre-check list somewhere in the cockpit since even trained pilots usually refer to it, maybe that could be a way to give the player some aid?