A couple days ago Lockheed Martin announced “the delivery of the first F-35 Lightning II Full Mission Simulator (FMS) system to Eglin Air Force Base’s 33rd Fighter Wing” and said that it would be fully installed and ready for training to commence as early as this coming fall. The system is meant to train pilots for all F-35 variants of the F-35 Lightning II, from the F-35A (CTOL), to the F-35B (STOVL), and even the F-35C (carrier).

So what’s so special about this new F-35 flight sim system anyway? Well, “The Joint Strike Fighter FMS includes a high-fidelity 360-degree visual display system and a reconfigurable cockpit that simulates all three aircraft variants for U.S. and international partner services. The system is the highest fidelity trainer in the F-35 pilot-training-device suite, accurately replicating all F-35 sensors and weapons deployment.”

Col. Arthur Tomassetti the 33rd Fighter Wing Vice Commander went on, “The smooth surface, high-resolution dome is a dramatic improvement over legacy fighter simulators. The high visual acuity and utilization of a significant amount of real aircraft parts and source code will allow us to train a wide variety of mission tasks previously not accomplished in simulators. The F-35 FMS will be our primary pilot training device, and we are anxious to start putting it to good use.”

So, are all you flight sim enthusiasts drooling yet? We thought so. As an added bonus we’ve included a video below of Lockheed Martin showing off an early build of the device to the general public and reporters at a military trade show back in 2009. We can only imagine the latest 2011 version the USAF is getting will be substantially more advanced and likely have more features both hardware and software wise, for example the new full dome displays etc.