Canadian Xpress October Fly-In – Aurora Borealis
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky (from the Latin word aurora, “sunrise” or the Roman goddess of dawn), especially in the high latitude like Canada’s Arctic regions, caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetosphere charged particles with the high altitude atmosphere. The charged particles and solar wind are directed into the atmosphere by the Earth’s magnetosphere. A geomagnetic storm expands the aurora zone to lower latitudes.
Canadian Xpress would like to invite all pilots & virtual airlines to join us on Saturday, October 18th at 10h00edt (14h00z) and 20h00edt (24h00z) for our October 2014 fly-in where we will travel from Vancouver (CYVR) and head north on an 1h45 minute charter flight to Yellowknife (CYZF) with people heading to Aurora Village to spend a night sleeping under the stars, taking in the spectacle of Continue reading
GB Airlines Starts International Flights
On September 7th. 2014 GB Airlines started international flights between Manchester and John F Kennedy Airports. “This is another milestone in our operations” CEO Matt Smith said. “We will be flying twice weekly between the UK and USA and if this is as much of a success we will hopefully increase flights. We have also acquired 3 new A321′s and will be starting flights to Heraklion, Innsbruck, Malaga, Malta, Paphos, Salzburg and Tenerife-South in the coming days. We are currently in talks with Airbus for a possible purchase of further A321′s.
GB Airlines has also been approached by Legion Air VA about a possible partnership and codeshare agreement”
Visit GB Airlines online @ http://gbairlines.net/
Great Lakes Express Nears Milestone
Great Lakes Express (GLE), the Internet’s original regional VA and one of the longest running virtual airlines in getting closer to it’s milestone 1,000,000th passenger, expecting to reach this number in the next two days.
What makes this all the more impressive are two factors 1) the capacity of GLE’s regular fleet is small; the Beechcraft 1900D, Bombardier CRJ200, Bombardier CRJ700, DeHavilland Dash 8 Q400, Embraer 145, and Embraer 170 all seat less than 70 passengers, and 2) while GLE has been operating since January 1997, this magic number is only since they started using VAFS for tracking flight information in 2009.
GLE was founded by James Kohan in January 1997, offering flights in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Hubs include Cleveland OH, Rochester NY, Chicago IL (Midway), and Minneapolis MN.
If you are interested in flying for a relaxed, fun, regional VA, with an average flight time of 1 hour or less, please take the opportunity to Continue reading
Virtual United Airlines Staff Changes
Virtual United Airlines (virtualua.org) is excited to announce changes and improvements to our community in an effort to provide the best experience possible for our current members, and to share the Virtual United experience with non-members as well. Change is not always negative, and in our case, it’s a great thing. We believe change is making the appropriate decisions and alterations in order to improve and become better. We recognized that in order to lead the world of virtual aviation, we had to improve. That’s what we’re doing.
The following changes will be seen immediately:
Our Founder, Robert Sayles, has returned as CEO and will be involved in all day-to-day operations. His vision for our community is greatly needed and his leadership will take our community to new heights.
Michael Hendon has returned to the Management Team as COO. Michael has had much experience in the virtual airline community and with Virtual United, and is eager to help lead these changes and facilitate our progress.
These major management realignments, along with others, such as the hiring of an events director and creation of a new communications and marketing department, are much needed improvements. Our community’s progress has already become evident and we’re excited about the future.
We’d also like to announce our ACARS Beta Testing program. A Beta team such as this has never existed at Virtual United as it will allow community members to give direct feedback to our ACARS Manager, Keith Lovell, as he perfects vuACARS 3.0 so that, upon its release, it meets the standards of our members. A common theme within Virtual United is providing the best experience for our members, and our ACARS Beta Testing program is consistent with that theme.
Lastly, we’ve hired a Director of Events, Eric Kollat. Mr. Kollat has been Continue reading
Canadian Xpress September Fly-In – Equipment Delivery
In August, 1949, Joey Smallwood, Premier of Newfoundland, had the opportunity to see Churchill Falls for the first time and it became his obsession to develop the hydroelectric potential of the falls. After years of planning, the project was officially started on July 17, 1967. The machine hall of the power facility at Churchill Falls was hollowed out of solid rock, close to 1,000 ft (300 m) underground. Its final proportions are huge: in height it equals a 15-storey building, its length is three times that of a Canadian football field. When completed, it housed 11 generating units, with a combined capacity of 5,428 MW (7,279,000 hp). Water is contained by a reservoir created not by a single large dam, but by a series of 88 dikes that have a total length of 64 km (40 mi). At the time, the project was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in North America.
This month we are adding a bit of a twist as the event is not only a fly-in, it’s got a challenge feeling as well. The power station is getting ready for fall maintenance work now that the Continue reading
Pioneer Virtual Airlines Starts Preparation for Operation Deep Freeze
With the Antarctic summer flying season starting at the end of September Pioneer VA starts with flying LC-130s to the staging area in Christchurch, New Zealand and Twin Otters and BT67 to Punta Arenas, Chili.
Flight plans for both routes will be published daily and the Antarctica continental flight schedule will be published October 1st.
Pilots can earn the Antarctic Pilots Award by completing at least 10 continental Antarctic flights.
Blue skies,
Kasper Hanselman
CEO
www.pioneerva.nl
Platinum Airways Commemorates Victims of Airborne Terrorism
Platinum Airways, the very virtual Open Skies airline, is commemorating the victims of air-borne terrorism. Its September Destination of the Week series, Terror in the Skies, visits four events that shaped history or led to improved security measures.
Platinum Airways condemns terrorist or any other aggressive behaviour that has a detrimental impact on innocent civilians. However, aviation has had to live with terrorist activity for many decades already, and events such as the shooting down of MH17 are a stark reminder that the fight against such despicable acts will always remain difficult.
Terror in the Skies commemorates the innocent civilians who lost their lives in the event itself or in its aftermath. The series begins with PanAm Flight 830 from Narita to Honolulu (PHNL) where a passenger was killed and 16 others injured by a bomb that had been planted underneath the killed passenger’s seat on the aircraft’s previous flight. Our second destination is Seoul’s Gimpo airport (RKSS), the destination for KAL007 that went off course due to a navigational error and was shot down by a Soviet fighter aircraft. Avianca 203 was a domestic flight in Colombia to Cali airport (SKCL) that was destroyed by a bomb that had been ordered by a drugs baron. And we conclude the series with Africa’s darkest pages in history: the Rwanda civil war that was ignited when the presidential aircraft was shot on its final approach of Kigali (HRYR).
As usual, DOTW offers charts to be downloaded and Continue reading
