Turkish Virtual Celebrated its 20th Anniversary!¶
Dear vPilots,
18th September 2021, we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of Turkish Virtual Airlines. Turkish Virtual, which started in 2001, has grown into one of the rarest, most comprehensive and most extensive virtual airlines today; reaching a recognised and respected leader in its field, not only for its size and number of pilots but also for its professionalism and the friendships that its members have developed among themselves. Both its pilots and staff working at its administrative levels have played a significant role in bringing Turkish Virtual to this level. Turkish Virtual has taken a great place in the lives of all of its members, with every member of Turkish Virtual having its own different story of how this hobby has affected their lives, being an unforgettable experience.
As Turkish Virtual, we have come a long way since the beginning. We have crossed complicated paths and have managed to survive together with a collective effort. Sometimes we aided schools in need, and other times we gathered the money for a small piece of jewellery that we would gift to our friends during their marriage by the team’s contributions worldwide. In times of need, the group rushed to help, doing whatever they could for the issues at hand. Everyone used every means available to help test the coding created by volunteers who had never made any software, at the expense of losing by failing to complete the flights, and everyone willingly did what they could. As a result of the team’s great spirit, our families never buckled.
Today, Turkish Virtual has grown from only a couple of pilots to hundreds and thousands, filling the virtual skies. We have a great team comprised entirely of professionals dedicated to Turkish Virtual. We have a highly advanced flight recording software (our unique Flight Data Recorder), which we have developed since 2001 with our means, with great effort, and which is open to developments, quickly adapting to the changes in the simulator world. In addition, we also have a very complex yet sophisticated website infrastructure. Unlike the software used by many virtual airlines, which are no different from each other, the software we currently use allows us to customise and develop them according to the needs of virtual pilots. Our pilots have the opportunity to access one of the most influential and most widespread route systems in the world among all virtual airlines. Thanks to our operations personnel's hard work and dedication, we allow our pilots to explore every corner of the world using our software and provide them with up-to-date route information. We also have one of the largest virtual squadrons on the internet, allowing them to fly all aircraft types, from single-engine aircraft to the A380. We offer every field of aviation to our pilots. Even for the small number of interested pilots, we have worked day and night to offer perhaps the best quality for the helicopter virtual airlines among the very few in the world.
Turkish Virtual Airlines has always been at the forefront of pilots who want to learn more about aviation. From the beginning, we chose to build the pilot hierarchy based on our rank, seniority, quality flight scores, written/oral exams, Checkrides with real-life pilots, and control flights, rather than the traditional system based on flight hours. While the system we implement forces our pilots to learn more, we still have some of the most knowledgeable pilots flying in Vatsim under Turkish Virtual. Turkish Virtual Management is also creating a brand new training program designed with our pilots in mind.
If we need to reiterate some of the issues that we always express, for 20 years, we walked side by side with Vatsim, and we did not deviate from Vatsim at any stage. We did not allow anyone to fly offline outside of Vatsim. This is one of the essential features that make Turkish Virtual special. As a virtual airline that has adhered to Vatsim as a rule for 20 years and never compromised, we think that only a few virtual airlines can celebrate such an important milestone. As the Turkish Virtual Airlines family, we proudly reveal the statistical data we have created over the years without hiding it from anyone.
As Turkish Virtual, for our 20th-anniversary celebrations, we sent two of our willing pilots to the “IFTC Training Centre”, the simulator facility in Istanbul, where real pilots and pilot candidates are trained for an exciting training event.
We thank all Turkish Virtual pilots for everything they have done to make our community exist, get better, and develop.
Happy 20th Anniversary…
Kind regards, Turkish Virtual Board of Directors