New Piper Aircraft has chosen SimCom as its exclusive provider of recurrent and transition training for pilots of Saratoga, Seneca and Malibu Mirage aircraft. The training will be conducted at the New Piper factory in Vero Beach, FL. SimCom will also provide maintenance training at all authorized New Piper service centers.

A subsidiary of Miami-based Pan Am International Flight Academy (PAIFA), SimCom will also partner in the development of pilot and maintenance training courses for the Malibu Meridian turboprop. A new Meridian simulator will come online at SimCom's Orlando facility in late 2000.

Meridian purchasers will receive an extensive training course, which will also include time in the actual aircraft. SimCom will complete its new, model year 2000 Malibu Mirage simulator, equipped with the latest avionics available on the pressurized piston single, early next year.

Plans are in hand to extend the training on New Piper aircraft to other locations across North America, but the transition training will remain in Vero Beach for the near term.
PAIFA President and Chief Executive Pedro Sors--a former chief of Venezuelan carrier Aeropostal -- says the New Piper deal supports the company's plans to grow its owner/operator training base.

"It's a market that is especially geared to what we do at SimCom," he says. "As an integrated part of PAIFA, Simcom will lose its name next year."