KARFA

Hi

Background
Some of you may have noticed that I am an aviation enthusiast and I am very enthusiastic/geeky about flying, and I know a few others on here enjoy what happens in the cockpit as well as just being sat in the back enjoying the champagne.

Over the last year I have been going fairly regularly to a fixed base 737-800 simulator near Rochdale. The simulator is this one Flightdeck Experience. As well as the cockpit the guy who owns it has built a cabin as well with 12 seats. You can see photos on the website. You actually get a simulated view from the windows as well. It makes it good for group outings and you can sit in the cabin for the time you are not flying in the cockpit. We organised an outing to the simulator as part of the Leeds Do in April 2015.


I have also organised for two years running an FT trip to the BA 747 simulators at Heathrow with the details of the recent one here.

You may also remember I took part in Worldflight in November 2015 which is a virtual round the world flight for charity starting in Sydney Australia and flying around the world to end back in Sydney one week later. More details can be found in this thread.

Charity Event
Starting at 1000 UTC on Monday 11 January a friend of mine Neil Hodgson will be taking part in a 48 hour simulator flyathon in the 737-800 simulator mentioned above. Neil will be in the cockpit all the way through and will not be sleeping! A team of around a dozen others will be helping and flying with him, and I am one of those helping him.

This is a realtime virtual tour around Europe starting in Manchester, UK and fisnihing there 48 hours later to raise money for our chosen charities. We will be flying our fully functional fixed based 737-800 simulator for the 31 flights to circle Europe. It will all be streamed in twitch and a link will be added below should you wish to watch. The virtual ATC network VATSIM are aware of the event so we may have have some virtual ATC at certain points along the route.

Some more information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/48hrFlightSimChallenge


Charities
We are raising money for three charities, namely The Christie Charitable Fund which provides support for cancer patients, North West Air Ambulance, and Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance. All three are fantastic charities and provide so much to help others. If you can please donate something - it would be very much appreciated.

You can donate here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team...x48hrchallenge

Schedule and Route
The route starts in Manchester going around Europe in a clockwise direction, and ends in Manchester 48 hours later. The route takes in some challenging airports including Innsbruck, Gibraltar, and Madeira Funchal


My own flights are going to be:


Training Evening
There will also be a training evening on Monday 28 December starting at 1900 UTC where Neil and many of the support team will be flying around. Unfortunately I can’t make it on that date, but it will be streamed on Twitch here if you want to watch.


So come watch on twitch, support us, and donate if you want to as well.

KARFA

And just to whet your appetite, here are some photos from the Worldflight event a few months ago.

CraigWatson

Inspired by this event, I have joined VATSIM with the hope of being able to provide ATC services for the event (at the very least GND at EGCC for either the departure or the arrival).

Will be donating when I have a spare minute or two this week - good luck!

KARFA

Hi CraigWatson, and many thanks. Will be good to have you controlling somewhere enroute. I won't be there right at the start at EGCC on the Monday morning, but I will be there from around 1600 onwards, and obviously doing the flight I am down for later on that evening.

Thanks for your support ^

CarefreeBA

Hey KARFA,
I've been around of VATSIM for a while now and this is great what you're doing!

You've got ATC on the dep and arr into Manchester for the first and last sector. However, I can't see for anything else for the Europe sectors. There isn't usually that much atc in the evening however you never know!

KARFA

Hi james_yuen. Thanks for the post. I have checked with those doing the actual organising of this (I am just piloting) and apparently we have posted the route on Vatsim Facebook page and also vatsim have posted the event on there events page. So it sounds like we will just have to see on the day who is online and if they are at any of the places we are going. I will change the text in my post above to reflect this.

I must admit I was under the impression that the organisers had managed to get some guaranteed coverage along the route, I do enjoy flying with ATC like we do during Worldflight as it just makes it a bit more interesting.