| 2-4-Cix |
Ever since Bill Casey decided to run a VATSIM UK version of the Sywell Airshow for the first time in 2005, Cix VFR Club has had a display team. When 2008's 'Sywell' was cancelled at short notice, our 2-4-Cix team decided to carry out their display anyway. That could have been the end of 2-4-Cix, but the members who had been in that team over the years were not so easily put off.
When Gray Brett rejoined the Management Team, he took 2-4-Cix between his teeth, in a manner of speaking, and started planning a series of Air Shows for 2010 on VATSIM UK, but this time, run by Cix VFR Club. Many other groups, such as the vRAF will be involved. Although almost a year away still, 2-4-Cix practice sessions have started. 2-4-Cix is back with a bang! 24/09/09 |
| Monthly Screenshot Competition |
Matt Scott is the Club's management Team Graphics expert, and he recently set up a monthly screenshot competition using Google Picasa as the method for members to upload and display their entries. A panel of 3 judges, plus an adjudicator agree on the winning entry which then is used on the website home page for that month. Using some imaginative graphics on the web site, all past winners and runners up are displayed in the Competition Gallery of the Pictures section of the website for at least 12 months. 24/09/09 |
| More Far Flung Flying |
Catching the continental touring bug, Mark Brown launched off on an "Austrian Holiday". Several other members jhoined in, including some who have only been members for a short time - very brave. The scenery was spectacular, some good ATC was available too. 24/09/09
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| Far Flung Flying |
We try not to be too parochial in our activities, and Events Manager Tim Arnot regularly dreams up new adventures to take us across the waters surrounding our island. In June, following a tour through southern Norway last Christmas, ending at Bodø, we began a new tour starting at Bodø and continuing to Banak (ENNA) the most northerly airfield in mainland Norway. At Christmas we had barely 2 hours of daylight a day in which to conduct our VFR flights, now in June, we can still fly VFR in daylight at midnight local time.
Several members have taken advantage of some excellent add-on scenery which is available for Tasmania and have been touring this beautiful island, visiting large international airports and tiny bush strips alike. The intention is to land at every one of the islands airfields. 07/06/09 |
| More Movements than Ever |
In April 2009 we introduced a "Facts and Figures" page to the website (see main menu, left). This revealed some surprising figures, and shows that this Club is up there in terms of activity with some of the more well known Flight Simulator groups such as British Airways Virtual. Although the transatlantic flyers log longer flights across the pond, we, mostly flying round our small island in little planes, log twice as many flights - 5,254 in the last 2 years alone, for example..
What is more, they are all flown online connected to VATSIM, as the Club does not record offline flights because they don't qualify as Club flights under our rules. In May, 51 pilots logged 437 movements totalling 413.75 hours, and collected a total of 163 award "stars" for making the qualifying flights. Each of these four elements is a Club record of itself, but to achive 4 records in month is also a record. 07/06/09 |
| Whither VATSIM? |
Without doubt VATSIM is the key to the Club's success. Flying online with other members with live Air Traffic Control makes flying so much more enjoyable for members - hence one of our slogans "we no longer fly alone". These applications have been developed by unpaid volunteers - one can't call them amateurs, because the products are as good as any professionally produced payware.
VATSIM however has a dangerous weakness at the moment. In contrast to the three ATC software applications which provide the tools for the hobbyist Air Traffic Controllers to organise traffic and speak to pilots, and which work perfectly, the two pilot software applications which allow pilots to connect to the network, see each other and talk to Air Traffic Control are both flawed.
Some pilots have no problems with either, some with just one of them. Some cannot get one or the other to install, some have errors or crashes while the programs are running. Some have a lot of problems, some have few. The software is very complex, very clever, and, like the ATC software developed entirely by volunteers. Finding these obscure transient and "not everyone has this problem" bugs can be very difficult and frustrating, and takes a huge amount of time tracking them down.
The problem is - the developers of the pilot client software have given up and gone away, their real world lives presumably getting in the way of their hobby; something all Simmers have to live with. Whatever the reason, the absence of pilot client development is not good for VATSIM's future.
However, with FSX likely to be with us for more than the normal two and a bit years, third party developers now have a reasonable window of time in which to develop a new pilot client. So how about it VATSIM? Take ownership of the software you rely on for customers. 27/02/09 |
| A New Message |
"The Cix VFR Club is now one of the largest organisations of flight simmers in the world, and possibly the largest dedicated to flying light aircraft ". We challenge readers to prove us wrong on this. With 340 members worldwide - UK, Japan, USA, Canada, Majorca, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, South Africa to name just some, we feel qualified to comment on the world of FS as we see it.
We feel that the Club's view on the virtual world it inhabits, much debated internally on the Club Forum is worth stating openly to the Flight Simming world to provide feedback and inform the decision makers which influence our hobby. Therefore in future you will see on this page, not only news of Club activities, but comment from the Club on the Flight Simming scene worldwide. 23/02/09 |
| Your Feedback |
To encourage debate, and to inform us of new developments, or to correct our misconceptions, we invite comment from you the reader on the content of this page (and on the Club and it's web site in general, if you are moved to do so). Simply email the webmaster. 23/02/09. |
| International Activities |
We make the occasional forays into foreign parts. Notable trips have been the trip to Cannes, Venice and Elba in December 2007 and January 2008, virtual Oshkosh in the USA, and Norway last year, and several others, including two so far in 2009. One of these, hosted one of our Spanish members, the very active Francisco, was a superb cross country tour based on Malaga. Ten Club members took part, another six Spanish flight simmers joined in, (ATC in two languages from Malaga Tower and Madrid Centre was a bit of a head spinner but very well done) and three international flights were worked by Madrid centre. A truly international event, and one of our best ever. 23/02/09
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| Malaga Traffic (Need we say more?) |
| A New Style |
The Winged Messenger is back in circulation after a few months in suspended animation. Part of this time has been spent reviewing the intended audience, converting the web page to conform more closely with the rest of the site, and changing its appearance in keeping with the rest of the site.
Because the Member's Forum is so active, current News for members is mostly included there for immediate access. So this page will focus on Club activities which will be of interest to non-members and flight simmers generally. 23/02/09
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| Low Resolution Aircraft |
One of the irritations of the two VATSIM pilot client applications is the way they display other aircraft. If another pilot is handling something common like a Boeing 747, then as it flies or taxies into your view, you are likely to see a Boeing 747. But if it is something a little unususual, or an aircraft created by a third party designer, then in Squawkbox you are most likely to see a rather silly paper dart, which completely destroys the enjoyment of the online flying experience , and in FSInn, unless you have dug around in some of the more obscure parts of this hugely complex application, you are most likely to see a Learjet.
Our member James Mindham has been doing a lot of work over the last year or more to try and do something about this, and what a task he set himself. The complexities of FSInn in particular almost defeated him a couple of times, but now he has a piece of software, available at the moment only to Cix VFR Club members, which will install low resolution (equals little loss of frame rate) models of many aircraft which Club members fly, even the "odd" ones, complete with the correct livery.
Everyone who installs this "wrapper" for the low-res models sees the exact aircraft which another member in visual range is flying. It is still a work in progress, even after almost 18 months, and one day it might be expandable to include many of the less common types of aircraft which people outside the Club fly. 24/09/09 |
| Online Flying - Tutorials |
| Earlier this year, the Club proiduced a series of ten tutorials to introduce new members to online flying. Starting with the very simple "sit at an airport, log on and just watch and listen" to flying into a regional airport with all the realism of the real world. The series has filled a gap in the Club's training material and has proved very popular with new members. Find them here. 24/09/09 |
| Now Where Did I Leave it? |
| An increasing number of members are now flying their aircraft in a more realistic way by always departing from the sirfield at which they last landed, rather than "spiriting" an aircraft to a convenient airfield from which to conduct the next planned flight. Some members fly the same aircraft all the time, requiring a significant number of positioning flights, while others have a number of aircraft scattered around the country (and abroad in some cases) and fly our activities using the nearest convenient aircraft which is where they last left it. 07/06/09 |
| Management Changes |
| In May 2009 we welcomed onto the Management team; Ruth McTighe, founder member of this Club, onetime member of the VATSIM international Board of Governors and also UK Management. In June, Gray Brett rejoined the team after a break, as Training Manager, QFI and 2-4-Cix Display Team Manager. Gray has also recently been appointed to VATSIM UK staff as Pilot Training Manager. Sadly we said goodbye to Pete Chapman, who has held various positions with the Club management team, but has decided that he needs to concentrate on his own fledgling Flight Simulation operation Misty Air Charters. Without the valuable contribution all these, and others, have made to Club life, we wouldn't be celebrating records, as we are. 07/06/09 |
| Strictly Speaking |
| Webmaster Tony Driver is continuing with his project to make the Club website conform to strict (rather than interim) W3C standards. You won't notice the difference, perhaps, but hopefully, by adhering to the W3C standatrd, our web pages will display as intended in any browser. 07/06/09 |
| Whither the Web Site |
You may not have noticed the difference, but the web site is being converted. For some time, our webmaster, Tony Driver has been chipping away at the code used to display our web pages, tidying it up and making it conform to international standards. Now he is taking further steps to make it easier to maintain that code, and easier to modernise the general appearance of the site. Most of these changes are transparent. Some do create visable differences, hopefully you'll agree they are for the better. A special News Feature describes in full the changes that have been made. 14/04/09 |
| Whither FS? |
Just before FSX came out, the Club CFI questioned how much further Microsoft could take this Sim in an article for Computer Pilot magazine. On the launch of FSX, sales seemed (from the customer angle) to be slow - a couple of copies on the shop shelves almost hidden among the zappers and annihilators of the gaming world. Contrast this with FS9 for which the retailers in our part of the world had large promotional displays.
Did FSX sell well? "Over a million copies sold" say Microsoft. Good news indeed - that's getting on for $100,000,000. I wouldn't mind a 100th of that! But how many copies did earlier versions sell. It is unlikely that we, the users, will ever find out which was the best selling version. If I had to guess, I'd say it was FS98.
The structure of FSX was very different to FS9, and once again the third party add-on developers had to redesign all their products. This had happened several times before, and with each architecture change, good developers gave up and went on to something else and new good developers came on board. This takes time, and for the UK, 2 years after FSX's launch we still do not have quality scenery for most British aerodromes, as we had with Gary Summon's UK2000 series for FS9, which was a commercial product. FSX aerodrome scenery is coming through, including Gary's, but a lot of it is freeware by amateur developers. It is often remarkably good, given that these people are presumable working in their spare time. So progress is slow. Is this a symptom of the flagging market for FS?
Now Microsoft have disbanded the team which was responsible for the development of FS, one wonders if this is a further sign of a flagging market. Are many new Simmers coming into the market, or is it mostly those who have been simming since FS4?
Time, as they say, will tell. If there is still a strong market out there, the Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot and X-Plane may see a phoenix-style rocketing of aficionados - or there could even be a new one if some venture capitalist thought there was a good market. As one commentator said; "Flight Simulator is the one Microsoft product for which they received universal acclaim".
The good news is that third party developers will now have a stable platform for some years and won't have to throw away all their good work and start again every 5 years. Maybe Microsoft have done the Simming world a favour! 27/02/09 |
| Whither Cix VFR Club |
Club membership is increasing all the time. With an average of two new members every week, we have now reached 340 registered members. Because of this, the club forum has been growing quite rapidly. In recent months the club forum has seen an average of 1500 new posts each month, many of these being in an average of over a hundred new topics.
The Star awards scheme, introduced in February 2008 has resulted in the hours flown by members steadily increasing. In February 2008, the hours flown virtually doubled and maintained that level until July, when 8 members flew across the pond in light aircraft to take part in the "virtual Oshkosh" event run by VATUSA. That resulted in a record 350 hours being flown in that month, a figure which was pipped by our Christmas 2008 event to fly up to northern Norway over a period of 4 weeks, and which broke the hours flown record. However, these were not just blips, for flying activity has been sustained, never falling below 200 hours per month since the Star scheme started.
Guest Airfields was another initiative to encourage flying. In November 2008 we introduced the scheme of naming three or four airfields each month which members fly into, and for which more stars are collectable, plus a monthly "Star Event", which awards a star for taking part. Since then, hours have been sustained above 250 per month. The number of active pilots has also trebled since the Star scheme started, now averaging around 40.
We think that adds up to success story by any standards. Anyone, world wide, who fancies flying light aircraft, VFR, mostly, but not exclusively in the UK, is very welcome to join in this success. 23/02/09 |
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| Flights Recorded (PIREPs) for two years to February 2009 |
| Ownership |
The Winged Messenger page is written and edited by the Club's CEO and CFI Peter Dodds. It contains a mixture of Club news and comment. The comment articles are intended to reflect the Club's corporate view of the Flightsim world rather than an individual's personal opinion. If you have a view on any of the opinions expressed on this page, respond by all means to the webmaster, but don't shoot the Winged Messenger! 23/02/09 |
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VFR Club
