Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at AIN Media Group, has been flying since 1975 and writing about aviation since 1978 and now has the best job in the world, running editorial operations for Aviation International News, Business Jet Traveler, and FutureFlight.aero. In addition to working as an A&amp;P mechanic on everything from Piper Cubs to turboprops, Matt taught flying at his father’s flight school in Plymouth, Mass., in the early 1980s, flew for an aircraft owner/pilot, and for two summer seasons hunted swordfish near the George’s Banks off the East Coast from a Piper Super Cub. An ATP certificated fixed-wing pilot and CFII and commercial helicopter pilot, Matt is type-rated in the Citation 500 and Gulfstream V/550. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Matt and his team cover the entire aviation scene including business aircraft, helicopters, avionics, safety, manufacturing, charter, fractionals, technology, air transport, advanced air mobility, defense, and other subjects of interest to AIN, BJT, and FutureFlight readers.

Editor-in-Chief

Matt Thurber

TRU Simulation is offering demos of its Veris VR (virtual reality) flight simulator this week at Verticon. The full-motion compact simulator replicates a Bell 505 and uses VR to provide a detailed view of the outside world.
This eliminates the need to attach an expensive and bulky visual system to the simulator while enabling realistic flight scenarios such as inclement weather and medevac scenes. Costing roughly 10 percent as much as a traditional full-flight simulator with a large visual system, the Veris’ footprint, including the six-degrees-of-freedom motion base, is just 7.3 by 6.85 feet.
TRU sister company Bell was the launch customer for the Bell 505 Veris VR simulator. The training device&nbsp;is based at the Bell Training Academy in Fort Worth.
“The Veris VR simulator device is designed to meet the requirements for both EASA level 3 and FAA level 7 standards,” according to TRU Simulation general manager Jerry Messaris. Last year, TRU finished initial EASA qualifications and the European regulator gave the go-ahead for TRU to move to final qualification.
This is now scheduled for later in 2025. “We’re also continuing to work with the FAA and plan to complete those qualification activities in 2025,” he added.&nbsp;
After these qualifications are done for the Bell 505 VR simulator, “we look forward to exploring other rotorcraft, as well as fixed-wing design concepts,” Messaris told AIN. “We’re also seeing great interest from the rotorcraft and fixed-wing community to support single-pilot training.”
In addition to Verticon, TRU has demonstrated the Veris simulator at last year’s Heli-Expo, NBAA-BACE, IITSEC, and AAAA.

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The Veris VR simulator is normally based at the Bell Training Academy in Fort Worth where it is used to explore many training tasks.

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Verticon 2025

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