FAA Approves Eclipse 500 Flight Simulators

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 20th 2008 at 10:02AM

As the production of the Eclipse 500 Jet has ramped up I had to wonder how they were going to train eager pilots to fly the planes. One answer seems to be the new Eclipse 500 flight simulator which is manufactured by Florida's Opinicus Corp. The Federal Aviation Administration has certified Eclipse Aviation Corp.'s first flight simulator with a Level D Full Motion Device certification which is the highest qualification the FAA grants for simulators. This means that Eclipse can type certify student pilots without having them train in the Eclipse 500 jet. Eclipse hopes to be able to start offering their first simulator training classes soon and plans to have three of these simulators in customer operation by April.

Tags: eclipse, faa, flight simulator, flying