Latest News & Updates for Members - November

[UKV1197 - Derek Butterworth]

Dear Members,

You will have noticed over this year that the provider of our internet service has not been the best for reliability and so the decision has been made its time to swap to a new provider. This will be done shortly and will also allow some new features our web team have been working on to be brought into play.

The past month's activity at Fly UK had an average of 372 unique pilots per week filing a PIREP in October. We received 2,562 Mainstream PIREPs, 996 Tour PIREPs and 475 Flying Club PIREPs. Membership numbers currently stand at 1122

Staff News
Jack Leftbridge has left the TA staff to concentrate on his career and college work. We thank him for efforts whilst he was active, mostly training our FSD controllers. We have a new staff member, Kenneth Greer, who will be active in the TA and also Ross Queripel returns to staff as part of our Web and System team. Leslie Thelwell also joins the staff, taking over the running of the Flying Club from David Campbell, who can now concentrate his efforts on the Charter and Tour operations.

Operations
The change of seasons always means a busy time for the Operations team. Our Fly UK Mainstream, Highland Connect and Nordic operations switched to winter scheduling on November 1st. Fly2 wraps up its summer season holiday flights during November before switching fully to winter sun and ski operations in December.

Topa Sky is now live, allowing members to to enjoy an extended summer in the Southern Hemisphere with our new franchise. Nordic Sky have also expanded operations in Sweden.

Fleet
In addition to the new Topa Sky A320 and Cessna C208B fleet, we welcome the CRJ700 to our operations based at Birmingham and Southampton.

We say goodbye to one of our longer serving types the 737-700 which ceased operations on 01/11/17. Having joined the Fly UK family in 2009 originally as part of the new "Low Cost" division Fly2, the type served with Fly2 until early 2017. With Fly2 rebranding as a holiday charter airline, the higher capacity of the 737-800 became the preferred option. Having operated on domestic and European mainstream routes for the past 6 months, the 737-700 is now replaced by a mix of CRJ700 and B738 aircraft.

Also leaving us in the much unloved Jetstream 41. The type never proved popular and has now been replaced with additional B1900D's. Highland Connect isn't yet done with larger turboprops in the future however!

Tours
A new tour has recently been added; Around the World in 80 days. You do not need to complete the tour in 80 days, but the challenge is there should you wish to accept. Two Christmas tours will be added in early November, more information in due course. These tours will remain active until the end of January 2018.

Marketing
We are hoping to launch the Fly UK shop in the coming days. This will include products such as the Fly UK 2018 calendar as well as mouse mats featuring a selection of your best screenshots. Keep an eye out on Facebook/Twitter for launch.

Training Academy
Alas due to Jack's departure, we no longer have an instructor to cover ATC training at this time, so with regret the ATC training programme is put on hold. If there is anyone out there who is very familiar with Euroscope and is prepared to give up some time to training then we would like to hear from you.

Documentation
The Pilot Handbook and SOP has been updated to revision 2.20. The new version contains several updates to the fleet list, rank structure, Cost index values etc. Broken links to both internal and external resources have also been repaired.

Our efforts to revive the Skyways magazine are currently on hold pending a review of staff resource. Further news when available.

Charters (Ad-Hoc)
Lapland charters will commence in early November, several other charters will also be added during November. Retirement flights for Boeing 767-300 may soon start appearing as and when clients are located.

Flying Club
As previously mentioned, Leslie Thelwell takes over the roll of Flying Club manager from 1st November.

Wednesday Evening Flying Club Flights
WED 01 NOV 2017 CANADA & USA CYHT to PAOH

WED 08 NOV 2017 MYANMAR LAOS & THAILAND VYKG to VTCB

WED 15 NOV 2017 NEW ZEALAND NZGS to NZTN

Wed 22 Nov 2017 - ATC Event

WED 29 NOV 2017 AUSTRIA LOAN to LOIJ

Online Events:
Events are currently held on FSD, Saturday at 0700z and repeated on VATSIM, Tuesday at 1930z and Thursday at 1400z.
Remember online events have no Rank restrictions, so it's a chance to fly different airframes

FSD/VATSIM
Week 1 Edinburgh to Jersey
Week 2 Rome to Samos
Week 3 Barcelona to Naples
Week 4 Tunis to Skiathos

View Event Page

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

Screenshot Competition - Sponsored by UK2000 Scenery

Congratulations to UKV1193 - Robin Turner in the October Screenshot Competition. His winning shot was "Dashing to Dublin" Well done!
The theme for the November Screenshot Competition is "Fly 2". For more information and how to the enter the competition, please see the link below:

November Competition - Fly 2


---ENDS---

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

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

On behalf of the Fly UK Staff Team