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  2. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Fly UK celebrates 20 years

      In late March 2004, an announcement was made that planning was underway for a new virtual airline. Soon after in early April, Fly UK was born. Fast forward 20 years and Fly UK has become one of the most successful and long-running virtual airlines around with its unique style and identity, not to mention its exceptional community. Over the years Fly UK has evolved as has the flight sim hobby to the point we reach today in what many say is a golden era of flight sim. Steered by an outstanding team of staff past and present, Fly UK enters its twenties having come through its formative years, unruly teens into what we enjoy today. Fly UK has remained at the forefront of the VA space and is arguably the leading non-real world-based virtual airlines with a realistic fleet and operational schedules. We thank all who have supported us on this journey as pilots, supporters and staff, without whom we would not be here today.  To celebrate we have several events and specials for members to enjoy throughout April FSWeekend 2024 Lelystadt Meet-up (March 16/17) Info Pilot rank/aircraft restriction-free period 1st April - 30th April 20th Anniversary challenge and prizes 20th Anniversary group flight events every weekend throughout April Special long-haul social flight Limited edition 20th Anniversary Tour Surprise announcements 20th Anniversary merchandise More details will follow in due course, but we look forward to welcoming all members to join us for a busy Anniversary in April with you all!  
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  4. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Fleet and operational changes 2024

    2024 is set to be an exciting year for flight simmers with a raft of quality addons expected to arrive in our simulators. Here at Fly UK, we are making many preparations for our fleet and operations to allow members to plan for the changes we intend to make in our fleet. We'll see some new additions and some types we will be saying goodbye to. Highland Connect Aviation followers will have recently seen the Saab 340 retire from service with Loganiar, Highland Connect will also be retiring its Saab 340’s at the end of March. To replace the venerable Saab, the ATR 42-600 will arrive to replace it.  We will also replace the last ATR 72-500’s with the updated new 600 variant in the Spring. Aurora Aurora will also see ATR 42 replace the Saab 340, We will also retire the MD88 this year although that will take place later in the year, the replacement type is yet to be confirmed.  Nordic Sky Nordic will see additional ERJ195s join in the spring and will also add the E190, replacing some of the Dash 8 fleet. Operational changes are planned to make the most of the extra capability offered for Scandanavia-European routes as well as offering Jet capability into some short-field airports such as London City. Cetan Cetan has been operating for just over a year now with great success, This year may see an additional hub being added, but our main focus will be growing regional routes with the addition of ERJ175 and 190’s. Cetan has several options on A330-900s to convert additionally. Topa Sky As with Hihgland, Topa will be swapping out its last ATR 72-500’s for newer 600’s. We will also be reting the A319 to be replaced with A320 Neo’s. Fly UK  Nothing is imminent for our main Fly UK operations however we are planning with heavy heart to replace the last of the Boeing 747-400’s in late 2024. Sadly the old girls' days on passenger service are numbered and with no representation in MSFS or XP, it is time to move on, but in the hope we do see a product on the horizon, she’ll carry on in Cargo. Fly UK are considering many options to fill the gap the B744 will leave but with many aircraft in the long-haul market coming this year to boost the 787 and 747-8i fleet, we are sure our Long-haul operations will offer some great choices. So that's it for now, lots more is in the works with more surprises to come in our 20th anniversary year so keep watch.
  5. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Is it Christmas yet?

    Across the world, trees are decorated, stockings are ready to be put by the fire, men are about to start thinking about present shopping and Hans Gruber is about to fall from the Nakatomi Plaza......  This can only mean one thing, CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE!!!!   Here at Fly UK we have our own gifts ready to roll, so what goodies do our members get now and look forward to in the new year......well lots :) First up out of the stocking is our festive rank exemption period where our members can enjoy rank restriction-free flying from midnight on 23rd December until the end on 2nd January. This means any member regardless of rank can fly any Fly UK fleet aircraft, on any route. PIREPs must be submitted by 23:59 on the final day. Next out from under the tree are some new E-Jets set to join the fleet early in the new year. The Nordic Franchise will expand with additional E195s and add the E190 to the fleet. Extra bases will feature plus with a descent almost as steep as Santa coming down the chimney, operations to London City can be expected. Additionally, we will be adding the E190 to the Cetan fleet, expanding the franchise and some of the USA's unique regional airports across the country.   Soo...all that is left is to wish all our members a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year! Thank you all for your support in 2023 and we all look forward to a great 2024 in the world of Flight Sim     Oh wait...there was one more thing. Santa left a present outside because it was too big to fit under the tree. Not sure when you'll be able to have it but if you can find it, you'll know what to look forward too!
  6. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    787 & Model matching updated

    Updates to our MSFS and Model Matching packs are now available MSFS Kuro 787-8 V2/3 Much improved textures are now available for the popular Kuro 787-8. Both Fly2 and Topa Sky liveries have been updated to our package v2. This will work with both Kuro v2 and v3. A larger package but adds far more depth and detail to the aesthetics of the aircraft improving visuals.   Model matching packages FSLTL  - Our FSLTL model matching package has been updated to Dec 23, adding the latest FSLTL improvements and the Boeing 788 model. This is a standalone package and does not require FSLTL to run, although it is recommended. Apply the VMR priority higher than FSLTL to enjoy the full range of Fly UK liveries. As before a hybrid VMR is offered for those that use both AIG and FSLTL. AIG - We uncovered some issues with our AIG-based VATSIM model matching. If you've been keeping your AIG - AI Manager install (and airlines) up to date, AIG has started moving more aircraft towards MSFS-native models, which broke our MSFS model-matching package. An updated version (AIG Model Matching update - Dec 2023) is now available.   AI offline schedules Support for an offline AI package which replicates Fly UK's current schedules, has been placed on hold for now. With P3Dv4/5 usage within Fly UK declining and our recent announcement over ongoing P3D support, we will therefore no longer be producing Offline AI updates.  bgl-based offline AI in MSFS has been broken since around SU10, and in a double-whammy, the Flightsim community sadly lost the developer whose application we used to generate blog-based traffic schedules. As such, his freeware software is no longer being developed, and no one else appears to be picking up the mantle, unfortunately. Should Asobo get around to fixing what they broke in MSFS, we'll certainly readdress our standpoint as we realise that this package provided immersion for members who prefer flying offline.
  7. UKV1790 - Adam Hart

    Fly UK's 2023 Christmas Month

    Cold winter weather and early nights signal the arrival of December and our Christmas Operations. These traditionally festive seasonal operations will operate from the 1st of December until 2024 arrives with the New Year.   Christmas Liveries Our Special Christmas liveries have returned to the Fleet Centre and are available to download now until 2024. The Christmas liveries cover the following aircraft: Airbus A320-214 (Fenix Simulations, FSLabs Sharklets Varient) Airbus A320-251N (FlyByWire Standalone Package) Boeing 737-800 “Fly UK” and “Fly2” (PMDG Simulations)  Festive Charter Flights Complimenting the Christmas special liveries, our 2023 December Charter flights are scheduled to start on the 2nd of December for Fly UK and Fly2. These festive charters will operate from a selection of airports from the United Kingdom and will operate to typically festive destinations such as Rovaniemi and Ivalo. December’s Featured Destination Our Featured Destination for December takes full advantage of both the charter flights available and the new MSFS World Update, taking pilots to the Finnish airport of Ivalo (EFIV). December’s Screenshot Competition The UK2000 Sponsored Screenshot competition takes a traditionally festive turn for December, with the theme for December being “Flying into Christmas”. Xmas 2023 Tour: “Oh Christmas Tree” For this years Christmas Tour, join us as we trace festive art throughout the skies of Europe in the shape of a Christmas tree. Starting at Santa’s Grotto in Rovaniemi, this tour sees pilots flying through Scandinavia, Western Europe and the Baltics to form Sky Art in the form of a Christmas Tree. The “Oh Christmas Tree” tour is live now and is a Class E tour, allowing all members to fly any aircraft from the Fly UK Group fleet with no rank restrictions. Xmas 2023 Flying Club Tour Fly UK’s Flying Club proudly announces our yearly Christmas Flying Club tour. This year, pilots will enjoy a relaxing set of flights from Rome Fiumicino (LIRF) to Santa’s Grotto in Rovaniemi, Finland. The Flying Club Christmas tour launches on the 1st of December. Xmas 2023 ‘BizJet’ Tour The Flying Club are also launching our Annual ‘BizJet’ Christmas Tour, taking pilots on a picturesque and relaxing journey from Jerusalem (LLJR) to Rovaniemi. The Christmas ‘BizJet’ tour officially launches on the 1st of December. 2023 Christmas Social – Sunday 17th December 2023 at 1300z Christmas can’t be complete without our annual Lapland Social flight! This year, our Social festive flight takes us from London’s Heathrow Airport to Rovaniemi. The event will take place on our private FSD network on Sunday the 17th of December at 13:00z.
  8. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Join us in Lelystad for Fly UK's 20th!

      Fly UK celebrates its 20th Birthday early next year and a number of members have planned to attend FSWeekend in Holland on March 16th/17th as part of the festivities   We welcome anyone who may be interested to join us for the weekend. Event information can be found below along with a forum post link to event discussions. https://fselite.net/content/fsweekend-confirms-new-dates-for-2024/ https://flyuk.aero/forums/topic/1025083-2024-fly-uk-20-year-roadtrip-fsweekend-lelystad-march-1617  
  9. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Henry Hill Memorial

      The Fly UK community recently lost one of its most prominent figures, UKV1213 Henry Hill. Since joining in 2005, Henry consistently featured as a weekly top ten pilot and proudly celebrated amassing 12000 airline hours in December last year. Henry also regularly attended real work events and could be seen on Skytrack map on an almost daily basis crossing the Atlantic. Henry has been a prominent figure in the Fly UK community from the very start and consistently featured as a weekly top ten pilot  Many members and staff had the pleasure of meeting Henry in person at various real-world events over the years at Sherburn Aero Club, Glasgow and the International Flight Sim Convention in Birmingham. He was Fly UK through and through, a true community member and ambassador for the virtual airline. A memorial book for Henry can be found here Fly UK will host a Memorial Event flight this weekend as a mark of respect by flying Henry's favourite across the Atlantic from London Heathrow to New York. Whilst this is a longer route, it would be wrong not to fly the route he loved so much. The flight will take 7 to 8 hours and timings are intended to accommodate members who have other Saturday family commitments. As such departure will be at 13:00 to arrive around 20:40. We welcome all members to join and chat, come and go as able throughout the afternoon. For those unable to commit to a ong haul, a shorter evening option is available and scheduled to arrive with the main group.  https://flyuk.aero/online-events/henry-hill-memorial-flight-long-haul https://flyuk.aero/online-events/henry-hill-memorial-flight-short-haul  
  10. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Fly UK Official Trailer

      We are proud to bring you a new Fly UK Official Trailer to our youtube channel. It's been some time since the channel and our Fly UK videos have had some love and attention and we hope this is just the start.  Any budding video creators that would like to be involved in refreshing our content, please feel free to contact the staff team. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this new trailer and look out for more content in the future. 
  11. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Fly UK Store opens its doors

    We've been asked for several years by members if we had any a store for Fly UK branded items, after time to consider and with the emergence of  "Print on demand" providers, we are pleased to launch this new service.  Hosted by the popular and worldwide provider Teespring, we can offer a number of products from T-shirts to beer glasses featuring our bold and vibrant logos and designs. Teesrping takes care of the order and delivery process meaning a burden-free store for the VA staff. That said we'd love to hear feedback from those that choose to use the service in the future. Fly UK wishes to stress that we are a non-profit organisation, and as a result, the prices in the store are set at the minimum the provider will permit to cover the costs and offer the lowest possible price to our members. The launch of this service is purely to satisfy the requests we have had from our members and we hope you will enjoy these choices, but if there are any other suggestions, we'd love to hear them. The store can be found through the "Community" menu on the website or the below link. https://flyuk.creator-spring.com/  
  12. UKV3428 - Matt Crick

    SimBrief Integration evolves

    As flight-simulation has evolved over the years, so too have flight-planning tools such as the popular freeware service by SimBrief. Given SimBrief's rise in popularity over the years, and in no small part due to the response to our most recent member survey, the time has come to make this a more streamlined and central experience for all of our members. For clarity, we will not be removing the historical way of dispatching flights using Fly UK's internal systems. If you prefer using this method or don't have a SimBrief account then you may continue to use this if you wish. Who can benefit? Fly UK Operations Staff have regularly voiced the challenges of maintaining a route database as large ours. By leveraging our partnership with SimBrief Fly UK members can now directly contribute to updating and improving our internal database by merely dispatching a flight. Providing a member with an active Navigraph subscription has previously dispatched the same flight on the current AIRAC, even members without a SimBrief account or a Navigraph subscription can benefit as these routes will be saved into our internal database. With a SimBrief free account you will be given access to outdated navigation data. This solution is ideally paired with a Navigraph subscription as this unlocks both monthly AIRAC updates and consolidated access to charts. Limitations of the existing functionality Our current iteration of SimBrief integration is based upon an older version of their API. As such: Fly UK are limited as to what data we can send with the request. Departure Airport Destination Airport Alternate Airport Route & Altitude Aircraft ICAO Code Members wishing to use Fly UK specific aircraft-configurations would need to add Airframe Profiles to their SimBrief account (links for which can be found within Fleet Centre) In addition, clicking on the existing SimBrief icon within "Dispatch" takes members away from the Fly UK website, destroying the overall workflow. Route generation is extremly complex and is forever changing. Agreed airways are subject to change on a montly basis (more commonly referred to as an "AIRAC cycle"). Airways get removed entirely in favour of adopting the concept of "Free Route Airspace". SIDs/STARs and overall route can vary on any given day based on the runways in use, and aircraft-type (in some cases). Optimal altitudes may vary depending on the weather in addition to the load within the aircraft. In some cases, entire regions of airspace may temporarily close on any single day. While the majority of our members are undoubtably just looking at routes that get them from A-B, the utopia is to simultaneously find a way of accomodating our members who may wish to more realistically plan their flights using real-world constraints. Time to change SimBrief's latest API allows us to send Fly UK's aircraft configs to SimBrief directly with each dispatch request, and enables Staff to edit this data far more easily going forward if necessary. This essentially renders our SimBrief Airframe shared links obsolete and will therefore be removed from Fleet Centre going forward. A guide on how the booking process works, and how to link your SimBrief account can be found here We will be rolling this functionality out to everyone in the coming days, so please keep an eye out on the new drop-down arrow next to the Dispatch icon. As always, we welcome your feedback so please feel free to post via any of our Community platforms should you encounter any issues. On behalf of Fly UK Staff and our members, we would like to extend our thanks to our Head of Web Development for implementing this system.
  13. UKV3428 - Matt Crick

    Fly UK / iniBuilds Partnership

    Fly UK Group are pleased to offer our Class D and above members an exclusive 10% VA Discount on all iniBuilds and Xometry products. iniBuilds was originally founded in 2019 by a group of mod makers creating GSX and dynamic lighting profiles for airports in Prepar3D. In 2020 iniBuilds launched their first aircraft for X-Plane 11 the Airbus A300-600, and the A300 Beluga in the following year. iniBuilds were one of the first developers to recognise the market and full potential of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Feburary 2021 saw the launch of London Heathrow (EGLL), with Buffalo Niagra (KBUF), Ibiza (LEIB), San Antonio (KSAT), Los Angeles (KLAX), Detriot (KDTW), Oklahoma City (KOKC), New York's John F. Kennedy (KJFK) and their Airbus A310 following thereafter. From very humble beginnings, iniBuilds have certainly not sat on their laurels and have established themselves among the upper echelons of respected flight sim developers. Members familiar with our Friday Night "Social" group flights will already be aware of the event that we put on a few months back, giving members the opportunity to fly the Airbus A310 and is something we'll likely repeat in the future. We'll similarly be putting on regular events enabling members to discover more of their airports that aren't already in Fly UK's Schedules. We hope that members find this new partnership beneficial.
  14. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Livery Updates

      A range of livery updates has been released to the Fleet Centre bringing new aircraft, cabin enhancements and fixes. Firstly, ToLiss A320 NEO owners for XP11 and XP12 can now find Fly UK and Topa Sky liveries for this recently released payware product. MSFS users can also enjoy some cabin enhancements, pictured is the Fenix A320 and PMDG 737. Cabin updates have been released for the following aircraft. FENIX A320 (Fly UK, Topa Sky) PMDG 737-700 (Cetan, Aurora) PMDG 737-800 (Fly UK, Fly2) Captain Sim 777-200ER Other updates are as follows FlyByWire A320 - Winglets and Cargo hold hinge texture fixes. LVFR A21N & A319 - FBW Fly UK cockpit textures. We hope you enjoy these latest livery updates.      
  15. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Fleet Replacement changes

    Fly UK Group confirms a number of changes for its prop fleet coming in May 2023 with the introduction of the ATR72-600. Highland Connect Additional capacity will be added to the Highland Connect schedules on routes from Edinburgh to England, Wales and the Isle of Man by upgrading half of the existing Saab 340B fleet. The AT76 will operate alongside the existing AT75's.   Topa Sky Topa Sky's AT75 fleet is among some of the oldest in the Fly UK Group and long overdue for a refresh. 10 new ATR72-600's will replace the older airframes from mid-May. Delivery-Retirement Delivery flights will be available from early May. New ATR72-600 will originate via lease direct from ATR Toulouse to Scotland and for those brave enough, multi-leg delivery to Topa Sky in  Australia and New Zealand.  Retirement flights will also be available towards the end of May. Topa ATR's will go to Alice Springs for disposal and the Highland Saab 340's will head to European storage for now. ATR type crossover Upon conclusion of the delivery flights and with both ATR72-500 and ATR72-600 operating alongside each other, we can confirm the types will be classed the same in a single ATR72 category. The two will be interchangeable in the same manner as the A320 CEO and NEO. We hope that our members will enjoy flying these new aircraft and the new possibilities they bring to the Fly UK Group! 
  16. UKV1685 - Matthew Lewis

    Happy Birthday Fly UK

    Fly UK enters its last year as an unruly teen as the VA turns 19 this weekend. The Fly UK has come a long way in those 19 years through tough times and good times but the strong community spirit has never faded. We've enjoyed great success and growth as the Flightsim hobby has emerged from its small niche in recent years and that's thanks to the members and staff that make this worthwhile. We have a lot to look forward to as MSFS continues to grow and XP12 develops. For now, make the most of this weekend and celebrate with us on our birthday event and rank restriction-free period.   Saturday 8th April - Birthday Event  Commencing at 18:30z (19:30 UK), join us for a three-leg hop around the UK home nations on the FLy UK FSD server. Details can be found on our events page. Join for all legs, or just a few...its up to you, we'll be happy to see you!   Rank Free Restrictions Rank restrictions are lifted for the weekend which also coincides with Easter. Fly any aircraft on Fly UK Group scheduled services. (not tours). This is available now until 23:59z on Monday 10th April.  
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