Latest News & Updates for Members - April

[UKV1197 - Derek Butterworth]

Dear Members,

Once again, thank you for continuing to fly with us.
The past month was good in terms activity at Fly UK. An average of 350 unique pilots per week filed a PIREP in March. We received 2,190 Mainstream PIREPs, 918 Tour PIREPs and 571 Flying Club PIREPs. Membership numbers currently stand at 1,104

Staff Changes
Gray Brett has been appointed as Head of the Training Academy, during the month of March. He is very active member of the Academy and will work closely with all the team to enhance the service we can provide to our members. Also added to the Training Academy staff we have Jack Lethbridge who will concentrate a little more on training ATC controllers for our server, as he has experience as a VATSIM controller.
 
In the Operations team we welcome Philip Harris to the New Franchise manager role and Kevin Peeters extends his remit to include Highland Connect in addition to the Nordic Franchise. Both bring great operational knowledge and experience, as well as a passion for the regions they cover.
 
Finally Steve Trueman will be stepping down from his Fleet Repaint role to concentrate on his young family and enjoy flight simming without the pressures of a fleet repaint to do list. All of the staff team and I'm sure many members will join in expressing our thanks and appreciation for Steve's excellent work over the past years.

Operations
April is a busy time for Operations as summer schedules come on-line. Mainstream service went live 01/04 whilst FLY2 Summer schedules will now change on May 1st. Watch out for more detailed announcements in the near future,

Nordic Sky
Unlike the rest of the operations, Nordic will have a small delay on the summer schedules. Our summer schedules will be released in 1 month's time, bringing complete coverage within Norway and even some venturing outside of it. This marks the start of the post-Norway expansion of Nordic in the following years.

Tours
The F1 2017 season tour has been released to coincide with the new season.  Releasing F1 flights in tour form has been a change from previous seasons but will allow pilots to fly the legs at their own pace throughout the year.  This will be reviewed at the end of the season.
 
A comprehensive review has been carried out of the current tours.  As a result of the review a comprehensive overhaul will commence in April.  This work will take considerable time.  Tours will be retired and replaced, any tour being retired will be placed in the retiring section for a two-month period to allow pilots to complete the tour.  More updates will be available next month.
 
Training Academy
There has been an impressive start to the ATC Training course with ten members signing up within the first couple of weeks. Added to the existing members that are making regular bookings, the Training Academy is very active at the moment. If the trend continues we may well have to increase our instructor strength, so a big thank you to all our members who are supporting and making full use of the training facilities.

Charters (Ad-Hoc)
The team are finalising a few exciting new ventures which will afford pilots new experiences.  These flights will be released prior to 1 April 2017.  Watch out for the updates.
 
Flying Club
Firstly, our gratitude must be recorded to Clint for all his hard work as dispatcher (his terminology).  Clint has compiled the flights and events for the past number of years and has decided it is time to hang up his mmm headset and pass on the mantle.  Thanks Clint from all the members of the flying club.
 
Following a period of discussion, a few new exciting features will begin to appear within the flying club, which we hope and expect may interest both regulars and attract new members to the club.  These features are currently under construction and we are hoping to start rolling out the first changes in April.
 
Wednesday Evening Flying Club Flights
WED 05 APRIL 2017 SWITZERLAND LSZE to LSMA
WED 12 APRIL 2017 CANADA CFY5 to CYXY
WED 19 APRIL 2017 AUSTRALIA YBUN to YPEA
WED 26 APRIL 2017 N IRELAND & IRELAND EGAE to EIAB

Documentation Review
A new version of TeamSpeak 3 has been released, so the TeamSpeak Setup guide has been updated to reflect changes. The Pilot Handbook & SOP has also been updated (to V2.10) to include an updated Fleet Policy and revised content regarding TeamSpeak and our ATC Switcher.

April Online Events
Events are held on IVAO, Saturday at 0600z and repeated on VATSIM, Tuesday at 1830z and Thursday at 1300z.

Week 1 Reno Tahoe to Telluride
Week 2 Krakow to Dubrovnik
Week 3 Dubrovnik to Samedan
Week 4 Chisinau to Innsbuck
Week 5 Menorca to Corfu

Please visit our online events page for more information or to register your attendance.

Screenshot Competition - Sponsored by UK2000 Scenery
We have extended the voting to the 5th April for the March competition as the voting started late, it will be announced in the forums as usual.

The theme for the April Screenshot Competition is " Busy Airport''. For more information and how to the enter the competition, please see the link below:

April Competition - Busy Airport


---ENDS---

Derek Butterworth - Buisness Support Director
derek.butterworth[at]flyuk.aero

Matthew Lewis-  Operations Director
matthew.lewis[at]flyuk.aero

On behalf of the Fly UK Staff Team