Good afternoon everyone! Ryan here, don’t worry Chris is still with us, but for this newsletter it’s my turn to write our monthly round up at UK virtual to announce some important upcoming changes, so I would ask for your time and interest in reading the below.
Grab yourself a drink, and tuck into the bumper issue of our monthly newsletter:
Flight Operations – UNI154 Ryan
It’s no secret that I have been at UK virtual so long that I have become part of the furniture! However, the time has come to finally step down from the mainstream activities and enjoy what I joined UK virtual for – to fly with my friends.
Therefore with my blessing I am pleased to announce that UNI1625 Colin and UNI1713 Scott will be stepping up their roles at UK virtual within the Flight Operations department. Over the next few months you will see Colin take on the pireps, assisting Tony and Chris. And then jointly they will be running the monthly competitions, supporters prize draws, monthly newsletters, group flights and the daily running of UK virtual.
It’s been a great privilege to build UK virtual to where we are today, alongside not only the fellow owners but close friends in Mike, Tony and Chris. I will still maintain a Director role at the virtual, and my OCD will not let go of the airlines/schedules here at UK virtual, however going forward the point of contact for flight operations will mainly be my fellow directors aided by Colin, Scott and Ali.
Moving onto our summer tours 2022, this will be my last seasonal tour refresh and I plan to go with a bang! I have created a theme of tours, following an old school tradition, which I hope you will all enjoy over the coming months. Our Tours will be released this evening for our UK virtual supporters, and then the 15th May 2022 for our members. They will close for members on the 30th September 2022, and supporters on the 31st October 2022. I really hope you enjoy these tours, and I welcome any feedback along the way!
My Summer 2022 update is now complete! This update brings a full schedule base for Ryanair, Easyjet, TUI, Jet2, Norwegian, Volotea, Virgin and Wizz Air. Also with this update 3/5th of our schedules are now showing either “ALL YEAR” or “SEASONAL” tag! That’s nearly 30,000 schedules updated! I will now re-focus on the remaining airlines ready for an update.
All that’s left to say is thank you for your continued support for UK virtual, it is what maintains our passion and drive to move UK virtual forwards, and without it we would struggle to continue to evolve the VA we have today. I very much look forward to spending more time flying with you all over the coming months.
This is my last newsletter before handing over to Colin and Scott, so for now get the engines ready for me to fly alongside you in the virtual skies in the near future! All the best, Ryan.
- I have been reliably informed that for some unknown reason members stop reading after my part in the newsletter, therefore you should carry on reading if you wish to join us for our London meet up in 2022!
Technical Operations – UNI548 Tony
This month I would like to extend a warm welcome to UNI2274 Patrick who joins the team in the Tech department to assist me with the upkeep and development of our platform. Patrick brings years of experience in the IT and Engineering fields and we look forward to seeing some fresh new ideas spring forth over the coming months/years.
I’m currently building a return flight system to allow you to book the return in a rotation straight from the Flight Briefing page. I’m also working on a system within the Simbrief Integration to allow you to select Custom Airframes that you may have saved in your profile and looking at a built in Flight Route generator you can use instead of relying on the default Simbrief flightplan for each route.
If you have an Alexa or Google Home setup, watch this space!
General Operations – UNI517 Mike
I wish to announce our real world meet up 2022. I am pleased to open entries for our real world meet up in London this October. The plan is to stay in Ealing on the evening of Friday 7th October with a booked meal in central London. On Saturday 8th October we will be heading to London Heathrow for a spotting opportunity, hopefully the weather will hold, and then you are free to head home afterwards! If you wish to register your interest to our meet up please follow the survey monkey link. There will be a £20 minimum deposit to be paid closer to our meet up date should you wish to still attend, to cover booking costs and overheads. Please register your interest for the whole weekend or just Saturday 8th October here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Q6BWSHS
Flight Reports Manager – UNI1011 Chris
Not much from me this month, just a quick reminder to check your PIREPs when you file them. Comments need to be added for any long pauses, any recovered flights or any other information which needs to be taken into consideration before accepting the PIREP. Comments are not required for other reasons, such as complete tours as Tony’s clever system highlights this to the PIREP team anyway!
Lastly, to avoid rejected PIREPs on your account, please remember that if you know a PIREP will be rejected (landing rates, missed AFKs etc) based on our regulations, then you do not need to file the flight, you can just cancel in the tracker and either start again or move onto the next flight.
Conclusion
Lots to look forward to this month, new tours, group flights and the mini-meet up.
We hope to see you in the skies with us soon!