Aircraft Simulator Training

09/04/2026

Congratulations to John Lawler who has trained with AST for years and who just received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. John is an Inspiration to all of us at AST. Thank you John from all the staff for allowing us to work with you. John is the best in the world of aviation and a serious Twin Cessna pilot.

07/19/2026

53 ENGINE PROBLEMS RECOVERED TO DATE. 4 THIS MONTH SO FAR.
This was just sent in by Bill Whiteford who as you know was on the front page of the Twin Cessna Flyer magazine recently.

"Hey guys, just wanted to send you a quick text saying thank you very much for my training. I declared an emergency today, lost pressurization and checked my engine instruments and had low oil pressure. Looked out my right window and had oil flying out of my louvers and shut my engine down at 10 psi, feathered the prop and declared an emergency. Was headed up to Oshkosh, but will not make that trip unfortunately. Landed in Lynchburg Virginia and opened up the cowling and evidently I blew a seal on my compressor side of the turbo charger and that’s why I was losing pressure but also oil.
Had zero oil left in my engine, however the crankshaft spins and we will cut the filter and also do a an inspection of the number one and number two cylinders with bore scoops to make sure everything‘s OK but was basically a non-event due to training and I just wanted to say thanks for keeping me safe more about it later on. I’ll probably write an article and put it in the Cessna flyer."

AST note: For all of you that train at AST the first three items we go over and over is "turbocharger failure, oil pressure, alternator light, oil pressure, props won't stay synced (do not use prop sync), oil pressure. If Bill still had 10 psi his engine is fine. Another thing we cover at AST.

Bill has been at the AST door repeatedly normally working with Chuck or one of our military instructors. Congratulations Bill, job well done.

07/17/2026

AST TRAINING
Just finished up C340 initial training at Aircraft Simulator Training, Burnet, TX. What an awesome experience with Rick teaching ground school and Chuck and the team in the sims. I highly recommend them. They teach the things you need to know and what will get you out of trouble if something arises.

Bill A.
Cessna 340
former airline pilot

07/11/2026

AST staff:

Guys and Staci:

Zane M. lost an engine at altitude. He was “high hot and heavy” and brought it down with no problem. He said possibly a bad valve. I did ask him if the simulator training helped him in that situation he told me without question as he was “high hot and heavy, so he had everything against them (passengers and Zane). Plane (421C) handled fine. He was at 11 five.

We will post it on the wall.

Chuck Crisefi
Aircraft Simulator Training
Piston program

To: Dionte, Sam, Craig, Joe, Adrian, Arron, Adam, RJ, Staci

AST NOTE: Zane trained with AST in April. He had a 421C without an operating auto pilot at that time. He was a low time pilot and he drilled with Chuck. Our very last session on the initial is “drilling” high, hot and heavy out of BIG BEAR, California. This is one of the worst places to loose an engine because it is high and in the summer with passengers coming out of that beautiful area you are dealing with a heavy aircraft. If you lose an engine off of BIG BEAR (L35) it is almost impossible to turn around and you have to fly the lake drainage down to the desert. AST has been teaching this for over ten (10) years. Why, because there have been accidents there on engine losses. Years ago one of our initial students in California asked us to create that problem and we have taught the recovery for over ten (10) years. You cannot fly this problem in the plane. It requires special procedures and an “ingrained” knowledge of what to do. Our count to date as of Wednesday is number 52 of successful landings on one engine.

Chuck Crisefi
Director, AST
Piston

07/06/2026

AST TRAINING REVIEW
"If you know the systems you can work the problems"

Rick, Chuck and the entire AST team are exactly what you’re looking for in initial and recurrent training.

Rick teaches you how the systems work so you can work the problem when one arises.

Perfect example of this was today during my BFR with AST. Coming back to BMQ we enter the pattern. On base, we select gear down, but we only get 2 greens and 1 red along with the gear alarm.

We break off of the approach to go work the problem and it turns out that the hydraulic pump has failed. Not a problem, follow the emergency gear extension procedure!

Selector down, pop the breaker, pull the t-handle. BANG goes the compressed nitrogen and down come the gear!

The landing was uneventful and w’ere on the ground safely. I got some excellent real world training today and knew exactly how to address the issue due to the AST team.

REAGAN E.
CESSNA 414A

06/27/2026

AST Instructors are required to be competent in our Twin Cessna Aircraft. We have monthly training update sessions on Saturday during the month. AST is the only simulator training facility that actually owns the Twin Cessna aircraft and keep our
instructors up to date by monthly qualification. Chuck is working with Craig today for qualification. Craig is our CFII and MEI instructor with a gold seal. He is also ground school qualified and is now taking on extra duty of training and keeping current pilots who want to keep their instrument skills up.

06/19/2026

AST HAS IT 51ST ENGINE OUT EMERGENCY - TRAIN IN THE FULL MOTION SIMS - YOU CAN'T TRAIN FOR THIS IN THE PLANE!

JULIO TRAINED WITH US FOR INITIAL AND HIS RECURRENT. AST TRAINING PROCEDURES WORK

Rick, Chuck:

It only took me 1,400 hours to get my first engine out emergency.

At level 220, on my way to Tennessee I started noticing a gradual loss of fuel flow on my left engine, slow at first, rapid after.Training kicked in, started diverting to nearest, then tried to figure the problem, remembered the class about engine and systems, troubleshoted with available info and resources (gauges, pump, observation) and figured it had to be a fuel problem, not an engine failure, figured it had to be a fuel leak from somewhere not a pump problem (not a good thing with a super hot engine). Did shutdown, called in. 4 pax 160 gallons remaining, flew down to Daytona. I then remembered that we had practiced this scenario, over and over in the simulator, we had glided with one engine and with no engine so many times, over and over.

Got to the airport with plenty of altitude, couple of turns and landed safely.

I realized that when training kicks in, we follow desicions you thought us before in class and in the simulator.

On the ground we found out it was indeed a fuel leak form the fuel hose that feeds the fuel control unit. The hose had been chaffing on the starter adapter bolt as you can see in the picture. That is awfully close to the turbo and the exhaust.

Thank you guys, I am very grateful because what I learned at AST made me choose right, not panic and just fly out the emergency keeping me and my daughters safe!

See you in my next recurrent!

Best,

Julio, 421C

Simulator training for pilots. Instrument, initial and recurrent in modern movement sims. Jet Aircr

06/05/2026

Aircraft Simulator Training www.aircraftsimulatortraining.com has immediate dates available for King Air initial and recurrent courses of training. We use an FAA-approved full-motion King Air 200 simulator equipped with the Garmin G1000NXI avionics. We also offer other courses of training, such as an SIC Second-in-Command course of training, Emergency Training, and can of course tailor a course to your specific needs and requirements. Our 2-day recurrent training is currently priced at 4395.00, and the 5-day initial at 9045.00. If you have 30 or more hours logged in the aircraft, we offer a 4-day initial course at 7295.00. Contact Jim Minton, Turboprop Training Manager at Aircraft Simulator Training (512.234.0045) to schedule your training. We will teach you how to avoid accidents such as those depicted in the pictures attached. A 100 percent avoidable incident/accident that occurred at GTU Georgetown, Texas.) Pilot error!

05/28/2026

WE ARE MILITARY INSTRUCTORS WITH MILITARY RANKS.

05/28/2026