For quite a while now(since Autumn 2024) i’ve been back into flight simulation. I was playing around with flight simulation using FSX back as a young teen, it died down when i started my professional career as a developer around 2016. The initial reason for getting back into it was that i watched some youtube content talking about and discuss plane accidents on a technical level and a personal level for the pilots, since the videos are created by a pilot. As a child it was my dream to become a airline pilot myself, this was rendered impossible due to physical health reeasons early in my life already and later combined with mental health issues.

So with becoming a pilot not being a option i became a software engineer, a decision i don’t regret. But for flying theres the silver lining that flight simulation is a field which has a very dedicated scene, making it possible to go from flying with a gamepad to full on rooms converted to cockpits.

VATSIM⌗

Further there is VATSIM, which adds a entirely new aspect to flight simulation: ATC(Air Traffic control). Vatsim itself is a server component you use in combination with your simulator software, the client you install gets live information from the simulator and transmits it to the networks server, the client also takes care of the voice protocol with the controllers, who are also real humans. With the speciality that controllers on vatsim go through schooling, while you can go on vatsim pretty directly as a pilot, to become a controller you need to apply to a vatsim region and then go through schooling as a controller. A process which depending on what level you want to control can take a good amount of time.

To fly on vatsim you do need some level of knowledge though, its not enforced explicitly but is implicitly. Going on Vatsim without prior information you will have a bad time as controllers and other pilots do have a certain expectation towards others.

Virtual airlines⌗

When doing Flight simulation on VATSIM you won’t get around Virtual airlines. Since (usually) you fly as a certain airline on the network, it seams logically to look at them. It is not required to join a virtual airline to fly on vatsim, it is entirely optional but it can add further aspects like planning, fleets, ranks and community to the flight sim experience. The amount of features and expectations from virtual airlines towards their pilots differs a lot, from very serious to very lax. But it won’t involve monetary aspects. Besides Virtual airlines which are subsidiaries for real airlines there are also purely virtual airline which do not exist in the real world. It actually helps them make it easier to build a own identity. But of course it also requires some level of fantasy and acceptance. Something which not all simulation flyers want, a good chunk thrive to get as close to reality as possible.

Two months ago i joined a purely virtual airline: Nordfly myself, it provides everything you expect from a airline and more, the Dashboard(called Operations Center there) is very sophisticated, further the quality of brand identity build by the airline offers a experience i think is pretty unique. You are expected to fly a certain amount of flights for the airline in a certain timeframe, but those requirements are very fair and part of most virtual airlines to some degree.

The other aspect i really enjoy about having joined Nordfly is that as a developer i am able to assist with the implementation and maintainance of the Website and Dashboard(and more). Something which the Owner and sole developer had problems with before.

Lastly it allowed me to connect with more people again, something i was quite lacking before.

Conclusion⌗

Generally speaking something i noticed is that in this simulation community. drama is not something common, its about the shared interest of flight simulation and enthusiasm for Aviation in general, nothing else. That fact helps it maintain a healthy environment for everyone, a aspect lost in other parts of the internet and especially social media.

Vatsim itself is pretty big in size and also provides a bunch of public APIs for various things. I have been using it for one of my data projects(mentioned in the blog article about bun-ui too). Which i think my next article will be about, until then!