The CIX VFR Club is a group of Flight Simulation enthusiasts who enjoy flying extremely realistic simulated light aircraft, chiefly around the United Kingdom, across a computer generated landscape made up of real photographs, and within an Internet community environment. We have around 700 registered members in 63 countries, which reflects the world-wide appeal of aviation simulation.
Latest News |
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With the launch of Flight Simulator 2020, a number of members
have already accepted the challenge of learning the modus operandi
of this latest offering from Microsoft. Like all versions of
this perrenial favourite, it has its quirks, surprises and
delights. The visual landscape is much improved over earlier
versions, but there are as yet not many aircraft in the standard
package, and no helicopters. This should change over time and
many traditional favourites and some of the quirky aircraft
found in earlier versions
will hopefully appear. However, to have the broadest possible
appeal, the existing developers who have been creating superb
aircraft and scenery over many years MUST be included in Microsoft's
expansion plans.
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A New Decade; A New Year |
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With social activities much curtailed during the coronavirus pandemic, there is no better time to do more simulated flying. (You can't do any real flying, even if you have a licence). The Club has something going on most nights of the week, touring different parts of the world. During these tours, members enjoy a sociable chat on TeamSpeak (see below), so there's plenty of incentive to stay home and stay safe. New aircraft are also being added to the fleet and can be downloaded from the site. Check out the Aircraft tab. We are planning to introduce a new training course, based loosely on the old VATSIM P1 course, which has now been discontinued. We already have courses which are roughly equivalent to VATSIM's old P2 and P3 courses. |
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Club Nights |
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The Club runs informal group flights on
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays
at present. These are mostly tours of interesting
places with spectacular scenery, with the occasional
tricky landing thrown in. Whilst flying, members
enjoy informal chat and banter on our Teamspeak
channel, which makes these events very sociable.
New members are always very welcome on these tours,
and beginners are given all the help they need to get going.
The current tours are listed on the simple calendar
on the right. We operate "workshop flights" for new members and new pilots when there is a request for them, to ease them into the world of on-line flying with other pilots and Air traffic Control. It's the ATC that gets new pilots all nervous, just the same as in the real world, and these sessions are designed to help overcome nerves. Similar help is also available on our other weekly flight nights, but the workshop flights concentrate specifically on getting new pilots airborne and comfortable in the on-line world. |
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Christmas Caper |
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One of our
members excelled himself and dreamed up a Christmas
tour of the state of Idaho in the USA, which proved
very popular indeed. Much of Idaho is mountains and
forest, with small airstrips hidden in the canyons
- hard to spot and even harder to land on sometimes.
Members carried a variety of passengers and equipment
for the U.S.Forestry Service, adding to the challenge
of getting a heavily loaded Cessna 172 out of valleys
and over mountains rfising to over 10,000ft. If you
missed it in December and fancy flying the tour in
2021, the briefing is still on the website here. |
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In January we invite members to try their hand at flapless approaches and landings. There are five airfields to visit with the runways getting shorter each time, increasing the challenge. Fly your favourite single engined aircraft and fly those approaches at a shallower glideslope than you are used to. You will need to extend the downwind leg to give you the distance to descend from circuit height. Enjoy! The Briefing is on the Monthly Events page.
Hover the mouse over the Day to see the details.
More and more members are flying with X-Plane since the launch
of Version 11. X-Plane is constantly being updated with new
scenery, new and improved features. The Club's X-Plane experts
are responding to this by creating new tra9ning and help material
for X-Plane - tutorials,
aircraft, tips and tricks from the world-wide user base.
It is all available on the Club forum.
We normally offer two flight training courses: - a basic "get
you flying" course and a comprehensive General Flying
Course, which is modelled closely on the real world
Private Pilots Licence course. However, one-to-one
training availability is currently limited, so we are
running "newbie help nights" on Thursday evenings
by request. We guarantee
that these evenings will be relaxed, fun and informative.
Join in on TeamSpeak. Other Informal training on specific
topics can also be arranged. Just post a request on
the forum. As mentioned above, during 2021 we are planning
to create a new basic flying course for beginners.
We are also recruiting new instructors.
We can also run Radio Telephony courses, again modelled on
real world practice.
Click on the Training menu tab above for full details.
Neville Munro's UK airfield datasheets were updated again in December.
Click on the icon above to see which of our club members are online now
If you would like to know more about what we do, please browse this site at your leisure. A summary of what we do and why can be found on this page.