Latest News & Updates for Members - October 2019

[UKV1372 - John Wheat]

Dear Members,

As we enter October, excitement is mounting as preparation for Cosford weekend is almost complete. All the plans are in place to help make this a memorable occasion for Fly UK. And if you can't come along, we'll be bringing you a full round up of the weekend in the coming weeks.

Last month's activity at Fly UK saw an average of 290 unique pilots per week filing a PIREP in September. We received 1,283 Mainstream PIREPs, 831 Tour PIREPs and 875 Flying Club PIREPs.
 

Cosford Flight SIM Show
If you are attending the Cosford show, come and say hello to us as Fly UK will be exhibiting as part of our 15th Anniversary celebration. We'll have a few surprises and announcements to come on the weekend also.
 

Staff
A few staff moves for this month. Leaving us is David Campbell, who has stood down from his Operations Manager position. David was a long term member of the team, most recently overhauling the Cargo division. Thanks David for your long service. Also, Dan Ridley is leaving the ops team to focus on non VA activities and pursuits, we also thank Dan for his input, particularity setting up the Southampton hub.

Recruitment is under way currently and we aim to bring you news of who has joined us very soon. Already joined us however is Andy Carroll, who takes over as Aurora franchise manager.

We have also had a number of internal changes and a minor restructure, which created three department heads as announced earlier this month here. Congrats to Ron Kurz, Matt Crick and Katrina Hancock for their new positions.

We'd also like to take opportunity to thank and recognize the whole staff team whom without this VA could not continue. Our restructure is with that in mind ensuring all aspects of the team have the support they need to continue to deliver Fly UK's success.
 

Operations / Fleet
Watch for interesting news during Cosford weekend.
 

Documentation
Our Oceanic Flying and ATC document has now been updated to version 1.31. The new version include numerous minor changes and as usual, it can be found within the Training Academy > Courses & Documents > Online Flying section.
 

Member Survey
Submissions closed on the 30th September as new responses have slowed to a trickle over the last couple of weeks. We have received 188 which is 19.6% of the total VA. We sincerely wish to avoid making decisions based limited feedback, lest it takes the VA down a direction that the majority end up being unhappy with, but we can only work with the data that we have. For those the didn't participate in this survey, I strongly urge you to take part in future ones.

To those that participated, but responded that they have no wish to fly online (even socially without ATC), I thank you for your responses also. Some of your feedback were reasons that I hadn't considered, and far be it for us to dictate how you decide to enjoy your simming experience. The aim of this survey was to understand why our members choose not to fly online (even socially), but also to understand how we can help our members make the transition to flying online, if that was their wish.

Good news for the online events team as we have 159 members that have told us that they would be interested in participating in online events with us. Be that purely social, or with the added immersion of an online network, so that's fantastic!

A full debrief of the survey, and how we intend to accommodate this will be released in a dedicated post in the near future. 
 

Flying Club
This month, our Wednesday Flying Club flights, held on the FSD server, will be: 

Wed 02 October 2019 at 1800z    Colorado - Granby to Aspens

Wed 09 October 2019 at 1800z    California - Johnson Brothers to Palm Springs

Wed 16 October 2019 at 1800z    Puesta Del Sol (TX) to Saltillo Airport (MEX)

Wed 23 October 2019 at 1800z    Tlaxcala to Acapulco

Wed 30 October 2019 at 1900z    Dangerous Airports -- Telluride Regional Airport

Please visit our Flying Club page for more information and flight plans, and to register your attendance.
 

Online Events

Special VATSIM event by FlyUK

On Sunday, 20th 1300z, FlyUK will organize the first official event open to all VATSIM pilots and published in the official VATSIM calendar. The name of the event is "Latin Crossing"  - a triple airbridge between LPPT LEMD and LIMF. Andre Almeida, our ATC expert, will control the Portugal Airspace. All VATSIM pilots are invited to join us.

Events are currently held on the FSD server on Saturday at 0600z and repeated on VATSIM/IVAO, Tuesday at 1830z and Thursday at 1300z.
Remember, online events have no rank restrictions so it's a chance to fly different airframes.

Our IVAO event is on a weekly basis on Sundays at 1230z and we will now be deciding the flight details just 30 minutes before the event, so we can select airports with ATC. Please see the Event Calendar

We recommend using the new Pilot's Notebook document for online flights as a standard procedure, to assist the pilot in ATC communication procedures (click here to download the A6 format version or the A5 format version)

Also, check NOTAM H if you would like to use an APC (Alternative Personalized Callsign) when flying online.

FSD

This month we will explore some difficult approaches in the American Continent

Week 1   Aspen to Palm Springs - difficult approach
Week 2   Palm Springs to El Paso
Week 3   El Paso to Saltillo - difficult approach
Week 4   Saltillo to Acapulco

Weekly Tuesday/Thursday flights

This month we will fly our  group flights during the week in either the VATSIM network or in the IVAO network. The network will be chosen to try to get the best ATC coverage for each specific event.

Please visit our Online Events page for more information or to register your attendance.
 

New VATSIM audio codec

The new Audio codec for VATSIM will be launched on Monday 14th October, 2019 and the entire network will be taken offline at 2000z the day before to migrate to the new system. Expect an update to vPilot, and if using alternative VATSIM clients, a stand-alone application will be required. For more information, please read https://www.vatsim.net/node/3313.

(NB FSInn and Squawkbox for FSX will no longer be able to be used to connect to the VATSIM network in the coming months, so pilots still connecting with either of these programs will need to update to a more modern client in the near future.)

Our events weekly planning could change a little to allow people to enjoy it.
 

Screenshot Competition - Sponsored by UK2000 Scenery
The winner of the September Screenshot Competition is UKV1488 with "Sun, Sea and A330's, the ideal holiday". Congratulations Travis!

The theme for the October Screenshot Competition is "Passengers View". For more information and how to the enter the competition, please see the link below:

October Competition -
Passengers View

 

Best regards,

The Fly UK Staff Team