Looking Back, and Looking Forwards
Hi all - with it being the beginning of a new year, I thought it might be worth taking a look at the numbers behind VirtualFlight.Online - to give you some idea just what a monster we have created :)
The Numbers
The Website
Approximately 19,000 visitors came to the website this year, and viewed the various pages of the homepage, virtual airline and codex somewhere in the region of 500,000 times.
The Virtual Airline
As you will no doubt have seen on the front page of the airline, 45,000 flights have now been completed by over 1,300 pilots, covering 13,500,000 miles. Insane numbers. We only ever thought a few people would join the virtual airline - in terms of active membership we have become one of the most popular virtual airlines in the world.
Discord
We have over 2,000 members of the Discord server now - with somewhere in the region of 100 joining every month, 3,000 messages being posted each month, and somewhere in the region of 45 hours of voice communications between them.
We will be making some changes to Discord soon - read on to find out.
The Facebook group continues to grow - albeit more slowly than Discord - with 500 members, and about 100 posts or comments a month.
Huge thanks to the team
VirtualFlight.Online wouldn’t exist without the efforts of a fantastic team of volunteers that donate their time and effort.
While many have been involved throughout the year, special thanks go to:
Craig, for the virtual airline tours he has created this year.
Peter and Joe, for the group flights they have organised this year.
Mugs, for the voice of calm he brings to the moderator team.
Emmanuel, for the fantastic liveries he has created.
Joe Gordon, for his continued efforts to introduce virtual aviators to ATC.
Beckett Sr, for his continued efforts with the Facebook group.
I’m sure I’ve missed one or two!
I think it’s important to recognise that VirtualFlight.Online is run by the members, for the members. That the community continues to grow, and continues to attract people from all walks of life is a testament to everybody involved and the environment they have helped create.
Changes to Discord
The nature of Discord - the platform we use for discussion and live chat - means it is very dynamic. People join and leave every day. Some people never leave though and their accounts sit dormant, which can create a false view of the active membership of the server.
In a few days time we will be purging the dormant accounts. We are not banning them - they will be able to join again if they wish.
If you haven’t visited Discord for a while and want to be kept in, all you have to do is visit the server (and do it soon!) :)
Click the link below to both join and/or visit the server:
And finally…
A huge thank you for taking part in VirtualFlight.Online over the past year. If you’ve not dropped in to say hello, please do visit either Discord or the Facebook group and do so - we’re a friendly bunch, and would love to see you.
p.s. I tried several times to get the AI image generator at Bing to understand that banners are towed behind aircraft, and gave up in the end. The robot overlords aren’t coming any time soon.