ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando-based pilot simulator training company is moving from its Lee Vista facility to growing Lake Nona to help with the need for more pilots in this country.

What You Need To Know

  • SIMCOM is opening a new pilot training simulator facility in Lake Nona

  • New headquarters will house 12 full-flight simulators

  • Experts say hundreds of thousands of new pilots will be needed in the next 20 years in the U.S.

Boeing estimates 612,000 new pilots will be needed in the next two decades.

More pilots means more training, and that’s where SIMCOM comes in.

“There’s a lot of demand for pilots right now, across the entire spectrum," said SIMCOM President and CEO Eric Hinson. "We need military pilots, we need commercial pilots, we need general aviation pilots, so the demand has never been higher."

That’s why SIMCOM is building a larger 90,000-square-foot facility in Tavistock-developed Lake Nona.

“It’s not just to meet the training demands we have today, but also the future,” said Hinson.

Tavistock Managing Director Ben Weaver said SIMCOM will be a part of the area’s “aerotropolis."

“We’ve got simulators, we’ve got a vertiport, we’ve got the world’s largest FBO operator here today, and we got a couple of other interesting aviation companies that we’re going to be announcing very soon,” he said.

When the new SIMCOM headquarters opens in early 2023, it will house 12 full-flight simulators.

Officials said they hope to double that number during their second phase of expansion.

The company estimates that 10,000 pilots will travel to Lake Nona every year to train in the new facility.