Worldflight

We are drawing near to probably the biggest virtual event in flight simulation – Worldflight.  This event takes place every year in early November. 

The event can trace its humble roots back to the UK and the year 2000 with the concept of flying around the virtual world in order to raise money for charity.  In 2001 the organisation was taken over by the lead team, Qantas 25, based in Sydney, Australia.  Despite very little promotion, a few years later the event gained traction and popularity with more simulators around the world joining the annual event.  Since its inception, the event has grown and grown involving more and more simulators and can now boast being considered an official VATSIM event.   

The event typically involves 10 -12 official teams associated with dedicated fixed base simulator venues.  Many more join in from other non-linked fixed base simulators and even participants from their home flight simulators get involved hugely increasing the level of participation.  The event is an intensive week long, 24 hours a day, round the clock, sprint starting and ending in Sydney, with forty odd sectors of flying around the World in between.

Each official team has around 10-20 virtual pilots involved and they are ‘rostered’ to cover all the flights during the week.  For those teams it is a test of bringing all the elements of rostering, flight planning, multi crew operations, time keeping, efficient turnarounds, and ATC radio procedures with VATSIM.  Flying with someone you have never flown with before at 2am with little sleep into a busy airport and potentially sub-optimal Air Traffic Control is a true test of any virtual pilot’s skills and a fantastic insight into the world of a real airline pilot.  We always aim to find the highest levels of realism at Simulator Review and this event is about as close as it gets!

The event is done for charity, and as an example Simfest in 2019 raised juts over £43,000.  Most teams also live stream on their YouTube and twitch channels so you can follow along and interact with them even if you are not able to take part yourself. 

Link to twitch and Simfest site – https://simfest.co.uk/      https://www.twitch.tv/simfestuk

I have been lucky to participate in Worldflight as part of an official team (Team Flex) a few times at Flight Deck Experience (near Manchester, UK) as a B737NG virtual pilot.  Planning usually commenced a few months ahead of the event, with team formation and ensuring all additional scenery was loaded on the simulator taking place.  There were usually a few practice sessions organised to ensure that everyone had a good standard of technical knowledge and general understanding of the standard operating procedures.  When you have two people working together and flying an airliner, it is critical that they operate to the same SOPs.  Also, once everyone had fed in their availability, a roster is produced for the week so everyone knew what flights they were allocated and had a chance to mentally prepare.  We would also find out at this point who was the most unpopular team member when it came to the allocation of the 3am slots!