March 2024 VA Update
Hello pilots,
In this month's news update we will highlight some of our development updates, as well outline future plans.
Development updates
We have reworked the landing bonus to be more reflective of ideal real-world landing rates. In addition to this the landing bonus is now granular, allowing for fairer scoring. A landing bonus is now provided for landing rates between -600fpm and 0 fpm; with the maximum possible score being awarded between landing rates of -200fpm and -60fpm. The full distribution graph can be found below:
Tour based score bonuses have also been added; after careful deliberation and work these bonuses will apply to all previously completed tours. All retro-active score bonuses will be added upon your next completed flight. The bonus score differs per tour and is based on a combination of the number of legs in a tour as well the total distance. The total awarded score is listed in the tour description for each tour. We are looking at reworking, and clarifying the existing booking procedure. This may include a possible rework of the current aircraft substitution system. If you have any ideas on how to improve this, please let us know.
Airline updates
With Air Sebia's re-nationalization there are no longer any significant ties to the SkyTeam Alliance. Therefore Air Serbia will leave the VA on June 1st 2024 to allow any outstanding tours to be completed. As of February 2024 the Korean Air merger with Asiana has since been approved by the European Commission. It is still waiting on a decision by the US Department of Justice at the time of writing. It is expected that this deal will close before the end of 2024.
We will follow real-world events closely and keep you informed in these posts of future happenings.
Tour updates
We continue to work on updating our existing tours, and if you have tours that you would like to see do not hesitate to let us know!
The monthly tour takes you across the South Pacific. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.
Closed airspaces
Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.
Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.
Event Updates
We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!
Closing words
As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.
We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/EAKR7Qe.