# We've Applied for FAA AATD Certification ‚ Here's What That Means for You
Motion Flight Sim has officially submitted our application for FAA Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD) certification. We wanted to share what that means, why it matters, and what it will unlock for students training with us — whether you're just starting your Private Pilot certificate or working toward your CFI.
What Is an AATD?
The FAA classifies flight simulation devices into tiers based on their fidelity and the training credit they're approved to provide. A Basic Aviation Training Device (BATD) offers some credit toward instrument training. An Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD) sits a level above — it's approved for significantly more training credit because it more closely replicates the systems, handling, and instrument presentation of the aircraft you'll actually fly.
Our platform is built around a full-motion DOF Reality base paired with G1000 NXi avionics and VR immersion — the kind of fidelity the AATD standard is designed to recognize.
What AATD Certification Will Let Us Do
Once certification is granted, here's what opens up for students:
Instrument Rating — up to 20 hours of credit. Under FAR 61.65(i), an AATD can account for up to 20 of the 40 hours required for an Instrument Rating. That means half of your instrument training could happen in the sim — in a controlled environment, at a fraction of the cost of aircraft rental, without weather ever canceling a lesson.
Commercial and Private Pilot credit. AATD time also counts toward select training and testing requirements for the Commercial certificate and, in smaller increments, the Private Pilot certificate — letting us build a syllabus that blends aircraft time and sim time more efficiently than aircraft-only training allows.
Instrument Proficiency Checks (IPCs). For pilots who've let their instrument currency lapse, an AATD-based IPC becomes an option — no need to schedule aircraft time for the entire check.
CFI and CFII training support. Certificated instructors and instructor candidates gain a repeatable, safe environment to practice teaching scenarios, unusual attitudes, partial panel work, and emergency procedures that are difficult — or unwise — to demonstrate at altitude.
Why This Matters Beyond the Paperwork
The certification is really just formal recognition of what we already believe about simulation-based training:
Weather stops nothing. A cold front rolling through central Indiana doesn't cancel your lesson — it becomes the scenario.
Repetition builds real competence. Want to run the same missed approach five times in a row until it's second nature? In the aircraft, that's expensive and inefficient. In the sim, it's just another five minutes.
Emergencies you'll hopefully never see for real. Engine failures, electrical failures, partial panel, unusual attitude recovery — all trainable at full realism, with zero risk.
Cost. Sim time runs a fraction of wet-rental rates, which means more total training hours for the same budget — and a syllabus that gets you to the checkride faster.
Where Things Stand
Our application is submitted and under FAA review. We'll share updates here as the process moves forward, and we'll be transparent about the timeline — AATD approval isn't instant, and we're not going to claim credit-hour capability before it's officially in hand.
In the meantime, the platform is already up and running for supplemental training, proficiency practice, and syllabus-integrated sim blocks across PPL, IFR, Commercial, CFI, and multi-engine training. The credit-hour benefits are what's coming — the training value is already here.
If you want to be among the first to train under our AATD-credited syllabus once certification lands, now's a good time to get started and build a training relationship with us. Reach out to schedule a session or ask questions about how sim time fits into your training plan.
Motion Flight Sim — KMQJ, Greenfield, IN
