Recurrent Training/Simulators

John and Martha King, founders of King Schools, and Matt Zuccaro, president of Helicopter Association International (HAI), announced at AirVenture this week the launch of a flight instructor refresher course (FIRC) specifically designed for helicopter instructors. This is the first time a helicopter-specific FIRC has been offered online. As with King Schools’ regular FIRC, the […]

Illustrations by Chris Gall| “Why don’t you just go to the airport and go flying?” Those were my lovely wife’s exact words. I should have them memorized; I’ve heard her say them, oh, 5,000 times over the past 12 years. Not that she’s nagging in any way (all pilot husbands should be so lucky). She […]

One of the biggest problems with home PC-based flight simulators is replicating the real-world panel the pilot flies. Real-world airplane panels have a wide range of available equipment, and almost never match up with the simulator program’s configuration. A lot of training time goes to waste learning the panel that’s on the computer screen, or […]

At Sun ‘n Fun AOPA and Redbird, along with numerous partners including Flying, launched a new kind of simulator. The AOPA Jay by Redbird is an all-in-one solution for pilots and other flying enthusiasts who want to get up and flying using a desktop sim without having to engineer a system themselves. The Jay, which […]

SimuFlite’s level-C King Air 200 simulator can be transformed in a few hours from round instruments to a B200 model’s EFIS gear.| Morning light was just beginning to illuminate the New York City skyline in soft shades of lilac and pale vermilion as I swung the King Air 200 onto John F. Kennedy International Airport’s […]

It was big news when ForeFlight recently added native support for the X-Plane PC simulator allowing armchair pilots to use their iPads with the sim software. This was a great enhancement – unless you happened to fly with Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. Now, a pilot with a background in software development has created a simple […]

FlyThisSim has just received the paperwork from the FAA signing off on additional capabilities for the company’s touch-screen TouchTrainer simulator. The TouchTrainer now features configurations for round-gauge and G1000 panels for Cessna 172, 182 and 206 airplanes (including the retractable gear versions). The analog version of the panel includes Garmin’s GNS430W and an STEC autopilot. […]

Before I walked through the doors of the museum at Boeing Field in Seattle, I scanned the sharp lines of the B-47 perched just outside. The 1947 vintage bomber had really been the catalyst that heralded the beginning of the U.S. commercial jet age. The concept of swept wings was in its infancy, an engineering […]

Frasca International is taking a big step forward by entering the level-D simulator market. The Urbana, Illinois, company has produced FAA-approved level-B and -C simulators for the past decade, primarily for Beech King Airs, Embraer Phenoms and the Cessna Citation Mustang. Now the sim maker is moving up market with its first level-D project based […]

Continental Motors president Rhett Ross says that his company’s** Zulu storefront simulator training center** is paying dividends, as it passed a number of significant milestones recently. Zulu opened for business on July 13th. Today it has 18 students and has trained students who have earned private and instrument ratings. Perhaps the most significant milestone was […]