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 all the time 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" on a Thursday afternoon 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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April Event |
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| For the April Star event we continued where we finished
last year's tough airfield challenge; from the Locher
private airfield in Italy (LILX). The task sounded
like a simple one; Deliver 2 colleagues that are
competing in the Winter Legacy skiing and the Annual
3 Vallees Endur event held at Courchevel, pick them
up from Innsbruck and take them to Courchevalt
(LFLJ) in France. The problem was the challenging approach
to Innsbruck, buried, it seemed, in an alpine valley,
and the steep slope of the world-famous Courchevel
well-named Altiport.
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May Event |
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| We ran yet another of our Mel's Mad May Mayhem events,
based on Shoreham with 24 members taking part who
flew back and forth around Sussex. Each pilot had
to fly to each of the four VORs in the area, Seaford,
Midhurst, Mayfield and Goodwood, flying an overhead
join into Shoreham between each one for a touch and
go. It truly was a My mayhem, but everyone voted
it a great success.
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The Club's Senior member, 101 years old this month, travelled in a company aircraft as part of his job. Although not part of the official crew, he regularly flew in the right hand seat. In the 1950s, he celebrated obtaining his own instrument rating, one of the first private pilots in the UK to do so. This event celebrates his days of flying fast and luxurious twins, as we make the 230 mile trip from Guerney to Manchester. 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 training 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.
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.