Organising and Taking Part in Group Flights

A few reminders to help everybody plan, and take part in group flights.

Following feedback from recent group flights, I thought it might be worth reaching out to everybody with answers to common questions, and a few reminders to help each flight run smoothly.

Organising Group Flights

If you are organising a group flight (see the Group Flights page in the codex for lots of help, tips and guidance), remember to:

• Create a topic in the #events-info channel in Discord along with the Event - with everything people will need to know about the flight. Remember to include:

  • The route description (include flight plan files if you want)

  • The departure date and time in UTC

  • The multiplayer server everybody should use

• Remember that many users will be flying slower aircraft - so plan routes accordingly - with the slowest pilot able to complete the route inside a couple of hours (in the past we have generally aimed for 150 nm routes).

• Try to include a comfort break half-way through the flight.

• Remember that group flights don’t need to be on Sunday nights! We have members all over the world - feel free to organise your own group flights at times that suit YOU.

Taking part in group flights

If you are taking part in a group flight, please try to take notice of the following:

• Check the “Events” section at the top of the Discord server on a regular basis, and click the “Interested” icon on upcoming events you are interested in taking part in.

• The details of each group flight will be both in the event, and in the #events-info channel in Discord. Please don’t just turn up and ask where everybody is and which server they are using.

• Stay together during the flight! Many recent flights have turned into a race of sorts - with some pilots charging off the front and leaving the rest of the group tens of miles behind. If everybody ends up flying on their own in a long strung-out line, it’s not really a group flight any more.

• If you *do* find yourself ahead of the pack (due to your aircraft choice), perhaps fly orbits at the next waypoint, waiting for everybody else to arrive. It works both ways - if you arrive early, you get to watch other aircraft on approach, and if you arrive later you get an audience.

• Finally, remember to keep conversation family friendly, and to stay away from contentious subjects. We are all aviation nerds - we’re all going to enjoy any conversation about simulators, aircraft, flying, and everything in-between :)