It’s hard to get a type rating. There is SO much to learn and so much great flying you need to do to get that little annotation on the back of your little plastic FAA ticket. So, when Clayton Smeltz went to get his type rating in the Cirrus SF-50 Vision Jet, there was all of that he had to look forward to. But there was more. Smeltz has paraplegia and uses a chair. So when it came to getting typed, he also needed some adaptive technology to enable him to do things that pilots of the Vision Jet, and most planes, typically use their legs for.
That adaptive tech is brilliant, with a pair of hand operated controls right at the seat edge for rudder control and a long lever on the right for operating the brakes.
So not only can Smeltz call himself the world’s newest SF-50 pilot, but he has also helped pave the way for others who can use such adaptive technology in the SF-50 the future.
