flight simulator

FAA Approves Eclipse 500 Flight Simulators

Filed under: Wings

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.

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Tags: eclipse, faa, flight simulator, flying

Build Your Own Flight Simulator

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

There are several options available to the person interested in learning to fly. The first, and perhaps most obvious option, is to take flying lessons. A more grounded alternative is to simply use a flight simulator, which can give you the feeling of flying without actually doing so. Instead of renting time in a simulator somewhere, Australian hobbyist Matthew Sheil built his very own Boeing 747 flight simulator. It has real-time weather, air traffic control, Qantas Airways food, a complete hydraulic motion system and is controlled by 13 computers. His reason for building it is that "crashing is less fatal" with a simulator. Interested in trying to build your own? All it will take is $230,000 and about 10 years.