Annual recurrent simulator training takes multiple forms. For more advanced aircraft, typically turboprops and jet aircraft, that training takes place at a large formal facility such as Flight Safety, CAE, SIMCOM, or Recurrent Training Center (RTC). These facilities typically employ custom simulators that are aircraft-specific Flight Training Devices (FTDs) all the way up to airline-style Level D full-flight simulators. At the other end of the spectrum, typically training simpler single-engine piston birds, are well-equipped local schools utilizing one of the more affordable advanced aviation training devices, typically from Precision Flight Controls, Redbird, or Elite.
The gap in those statements is more complex piston aircraft and medium to heavy twins? A couple of the large national facilities, notably Recurrent Training Center (RTC, where I went last year) and SIMCOM, maintain a modest presence in that middle ground. Other schools addressing that middle ground are schools that likely started as smaller local facilities, but their presence in that space gained some national exposure, which gets them a larger audience than exists locally.
