So did my friend Chris Wrather, a 1,500-hour pilot andBonanza owner, who accompanied me to RTC for his first taste of sim-based training. Adjust the weather to be exactly what you want. However, archived articles are not reviewed for accuracy following various changes in industry procedures and practices, FAA guidance or regulations. Were lucky that FSI built these sims back then,because simulators of this caliber and cost could never be justified in todays businessclimate. 36th Street To keep the cost to a minimum, show up ready to goinstrument current and with the decks cleared so that you arent distracted during training. Orlando is the companys main headquarters and training location. On thisscale, FlightSafety has a clear lead, with Simcom offering somewhat less fidelity, and RTC(with its generic sims) trailing at a very distant third. The old expression goes, Train like you fly and fly like you train. That seems to say you should train in your aircraft. In previous lives, Ray had owned a flight school, a charter company and flown Part 91 corporate. So I asked them how we were doing. Aviation Services, Inc. Simcom is located in Orlando, Florida and has two visual-motion simulators, classrooms and a team of professional flight instructors located in Orlando, Florida. In more and more cases, your underwriter maynot be willing to insure you at all unless you go through an approved recurrent trainingcourse on an annual basis. The size and number of SimCom facilities, however, has expanded. An all-new Level 6 Flight Training Device for Pilatus' PC-12 NGX has received the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) National Simulator Programme approval for training flight crews of Pilatus' latest iteration of its popular single-engine turboprop. SimCom also has obtained FAA approval for a Citation single-pilot course/type rating thats conducted entirely in one of the companys simulators. The customized course costs the same as the standard Captains course, but runs only eight days instead of the standard 14, saving participants time and travel expense money. (FSI alsooperates a Mooney Learning Center in San Antonio, Texas, but no simulator training isavailable for Mooneys.). Finding none, attend with high expectations that will likely be met. Flying around the Statue of Liberty and then landing on the 700-foot-long Manhattan Heliport in a jet may sound silly to talk about, but when you do it and discover that you are getting to know the airplane well enough that you can pull it off, youll have made great strides to becoming one with your new flying machine. $9,875 Naturally, the flight nevergoes as planned, and you are confronted with various challenges: unforecast weather,aircraft failures, navaid outages, runway changes, ATC delays, etc. Accidentstatistics back this up: pilots who get regular sim training are far safer than those whodont. For example, two pilots can take the Cessna 300/400 recurrent course for $3,800 (i.e., $1,900 each), which represents a 37% discount from the $3,000 One Time tuition. Myconclusion is that if cost and distance were no object, the best possible trainingstrategy might well be to rotate among the three firms in order to obtain the best thateach one has to offer. Once you get into the world of jet type ratings training cost can be north of $30,000. This website uses cookies to enhance your experience. No. FSI has long tailored its training to fit the studentand provides mentor pilots to support owners after they complete training. Scheduling varies with each class and number of participants. And they said, well, the other places theyd done training had full motion simulators, so they were better in that way. This means that much of their training is one on one. So whether we go because the insurance forces us to, or we just go because its a good idea, what are we looking for while were there? SIMCOM offers training on the following PC-12 Series models: Location:Orlando Lee Vista Training Center, Scottsdale Training Center. I managed to kill myself quite a few times during sim training and then when I had an actual engine failure four years ago in the airplane, it was pretty much a non-event (except for my wallet, of course)., Busch went on to point out something that we hadnt considered: The ground school portion helps with maintenance costs. To the extent practical, SIMCOM schedules its training on client demand. All Rights Reserved. As you get near the end of sim training, ask the instructor for her or his scenario. Every instructor who knows his or her airplane well has one. In large classes, he explains, the instructor has to teach to the lowest common denominator in the class. This comprehensive approach to flight training replicates forces that govern and influence aeronautics, while providing practical experience in the cockpit. Plan on spending a bare minimum of $4000 for piston-twin upgrade training. I always found their training to be excellent, but their focus seemed to be on jets and turboprops with an Oh, yeah, we also have some piston training if thats really what you want attitude that was disconcerting. Interestingly, we found that upgrade courses for single- and multi-engine turboprops (not requiring a type rating) were not much longer than those for piston twins. Unfortunately, its the pilots who have never experienced such training (andunfortunately this includes the great majority of owner/pilots) who dont know whattheyve been missing. The FSI rep we spoke with said that the company has gone to all Level D simulators (the highest currently available) and it was no longer financially feasible for them to provide piston twin training. Note: Minimum prerequisites for enrollment apply to each of the courses above. Hinson openly discussed what is too often a dirty little secret in upgrade trainingwhile the syllabus may be standardized, much of the quality of the training is dependent on the quality and experience of the instructor. $5,295, B737-3/4/500 A multiengine recurrent course usually takes three fulldays and costs $3,100 for Beech Baron/Duke, $3,000 for Cessna 300/400, and $2,700 forPiper twins. For example, when FlightSafetyfirst shipped one of its two Cessna 300/400 simulators to its Long Beach (Calif.) learningcenter, the sim didnt have a motion base. Or, perhaps your goal might lean more toward a systems refresher. This is the sort of training that the airlines call LOFT (Line-Oriented FlightTraining), and is a significant departure from the sort of recurrent training offered byFlightSafety or Simcom. Transition Training If you want to stay proficient while at the sametime treating your aircraft with TLC, you should seriously consider doing your recurrenttraining in a simulatoror in someone elses aircraft! The value proposition for SimCom since the beginning, he says, was to give customers value, customized training, and a friendly atmosphere. Grand Prairie, TX If you have difficulty viewing the website, contact us at 1.877.879.0275. He is the author of. Calling as a student (not an editor), I reached out to another facility Id previously visited, Glass Simulator Center (now SIMPRO) in Aurora, IL, but they didnt return my call. So, it makes sense to train in the aircraft youll fly. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It operates 47 simulators and flight training devices. The usual curriculum involves 14 days of classroom and simulator time and is designed to take a commercial, instrument, multi-engine pilot with no jet time through a type rating. Originally, SimCom focused on training for owner-operators of cabin-class, twin-engine piston aircraft pilots who wouldnt normally have access to simulator training. When you train in your actual aircraft, youre polishing every aspect of your proficiency, from buttonology on your equipment to handling the bird in those edge cases your CFI just loves to throw at you. The more the industry drags out phasing out 100LL, the more susceptible it is to looking unconcerned about public health risks. When it worked correctly, it was fine; there were many times when it didnt. One Time Plus is a reduced tuition for pilots who have taken the same course within the previous 12 months, and is between 15% and 25% less than the One Time price (depending on aircraft make). As the new owner of a cabin-class, turbocharged twin, I was still reeling from the hourly fuel costs, which are more than double what I was used to in the Twin Comanche I used to fly. The Thinking Pilots Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. SimCom has expanded and evolved over the years. A simulator also provides a far more efficient trainingenvironment than an aircraft. SIMCOM training is top tier, but their business model recently seems to mirror the big corporate centers with pricing to match. Training begins in a classroom where the student is introduced to operation day flow, which means they start using desktop simulators that mimic the jets avionics suite. Your insurance company will be ecstatic that you aredoing this sort of training, and will almost always express its ecstasy through reducedaircraft insurance premiums. 562-938-0100, Citation V The quality of individual instructors was a constant refrain in our conversations with users as they related good and bad training experiences. How about the fidelity with which a simreproduces the cockpit layout, control feel and systems of the aircraft you fly? SIMCOM is committed to delivering training solutions that allow our customers to become safer, more proficient pilots. CAE eLearning courses empower you to take learning and safety into your own hands with more than 80 courses covering General Operating and Bombardier aircraft-specific courses. SimCom offers simulator-based training for the Beech Baron and Duke,Cessna 300/400 twins, and Piper Aerostar, Mojave and Navajo. SimCom began with one facility in Orlando, Florida. 3401 Quebec Street, Suite 9150 (Classroom and Home Study), Mile High Its a bit more difficult to fly anon-motion sim (because you receive fewer cues), but one could argue that this results ingreater pilot proficiency rather than less. Themost difficult parts of doing this in a single-pilot cockpit scanning between thegauges and the windshield and deciding whether or not adequate visual references areavailable to make the landing are never practiced at all. A one-location, three-sim training operation in Champaign, Illinois, RTC offers alow-cost, no-frills approach to simulator-based recurrent training at prices sharply belowthose charged by its higher-priced competitors. In another particularly valuable scenario, the instructor simulatedan in-flight fire necessitating an off-airport landing on a freeway. 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