National Flight Simulator Takes Off

Stephen Cunningham, president of National Flight Simulator, with an analog display. Photo by Christine Carignan.

With many business executives choosing the convenience and time savings of private airplanes, National Flight Simulator in Manchester is seeing its fortunes take flight.

Located at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, the company, which runs a flight training center and testing facility for piloting planes holding up to nine people, has experienced revenue growth of 63 percent in the last three years.

President Stephen Cunningham attributes that growth to customized training programs that can recreate the exact instrument panels for dozens of different planes and digital displays along with a handful of analog models. Cunningham employs 15 independent contractors experienced with flying small planes, a competitive advantage as he says most of his large national competitors employ pilots who flew large jets.

A digital display control panel simulator at National Flight Simulator. Photo by Christine Carignan.

“The real value in simulator-based training is that we can do things in the simulator that you ought not ever do in an airplane,” Cunningham says. “Contrary to popular belief, airplanes were designed to fly; pilots mess them up.” The simulators replicate the nose of a small plane, complete with a cockpit with actual controls and a large white screen on which runway and flight simulations are projected, including rain, fog, ice and many other conditions.

The majority of National Flight Simulator’s business is recurrent training to update skills and instrument proficiency checks on small planes including piston twin engines, turbo propeller twin engines and single engines. The business also runs simulated flight tests for companies considering hiring pilots including Wiggins Airways in Manchester, which provides cargo and charter flights.  

“The insurance company really drives this train,” Cunningham says explaining that the training reduces insurance rates. On the instrument check side, the Federal Aviation Administration requires pilots to log a certain number of procedures each year.

National Flight Simulator has a customer base of about 450 pilots looking for training and skills updates. The majority of its clients are commercial pilots, but the company also trains private pilots and military pilots. Among its clients are the Ecuadorian and Columbian air forces and pilots from all over the country. Cunningham recently trained a pilot planning to fly in the Alaskan wilderness.

The company has five flight simulators. Recurrent flight training is a two-day course with 10 hours of class time and 10 hours of simulator time that is one-on-one or one-on-two with a trainer. The program costs $2,000 to $3,000, depending on the plane type, with a second pilot half off.  

There are 5,300 airports nationally, he says, of which only 350 are served by airlines. These smaller airports are where Cunningham’s customers most often fly.

Still, he moved his own business from Nashua Airport to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport two years ago to be more accessible to clients, as most fly on commercial airlines rather than on their own planes, which are expensive to operate. Last November Cunningham changed his company name from Nashua Flight Simulator to National Flight Simulator to better reflect the scope of his business.

Cunningham says he wanted to be a pilot since he was a child. He received his pilot’s license after a career in the Air Force as a mechanic. He then spent many years as a fundraiser, including heading the U.S. Aerobatic Foundation.

He started National Flight Simulator in 2006 after a “failed retirement” and now works 12-hour days, six days a week in a business he calls a labor of love.

He would like to add more simulators, but they cost $250,000 or more.

“Where else can you have a playground like this?” he asks, pointing to his flight simulators. For more information, visit nationalflightsimulator.com.