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Taking Flight, LeTourneau Debuts New Flight Simulators in East Texas

Learning to fly in East Texas just got a little more high tech, with LeTourneau University's new flight simulators. Check out what they can do!

LONGVIEW, Texas — When you think about learning to fly, of course you need to get behind the controls of an actual aircraft. However, there are some things that you just can't practice safely or cost effectively in a real plane. That is where flight simulators come into play, and LeTourneau University just unveiled some of the newest simulators for small aircraft in the country. 

The simulators were unveiled last week for LeTourneau University's College of Aviation and Aeronautical Science. They can be configured to simulate the experience of flying a single engine Cessna 172 Skyhawk or a multi-engine Piper Seminole. 

These simulators represent some of the newest technology in flight simulators for these aircraft, and were only made available for purchase in 2018. 

Bruce Chase, Chair of the Department of Flight Science at LeTourneau, said this about the simulators, "The key advantage is we can be more effective with the training for the students." He also added, "We can simulate failures that we could not do in the airplane or we wouldn't do in the airplane," and that "we can put the pause button on and say, alright let's talk about this."

Another key advantage to these simulators is being able to simulate nearly any type of weather condition that you would reasonably be expected to fly in, or in some worst case scenarios, have to fly in. 

When asked about their ability to simulate weather, Bruce added, "We can simulate flying through the clouds. We're trying to create different mindsets that they have to have when they are flying in the clouds, different procedures, it's a different environment." Additionally he said, "We can simulate fog, we can simulate snow, and we can talk through those things."

After flying through one of the rougher weather situations these simulators can serve up, LeTourneau student turned flight instructor Erica Swenson had this to say about flying with the simulator, “You can put yourself in highly stressful situations that in reality would be very bad situations to be in and without the stress of actually fear of injury or loss of life or loss of airplane." Adding, "Where in reality we are 100% about safety, and while we fly the sim like we fly in the airplane, we can have worse situations happen in the simulator than we would allow to happen in the airplane."

These simulators are pending FAA approval before LeTourneau can actually start using them to train students, but if all goes well they should be in use very soon. 

If you would like to see the simulators in action, be sure to watch the video at the beginning of this article. I was able to go for a test flight of my own using the simulator, and I have to say, flying these machines is much harder than it looks!

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