On June 17, 2004 the Flying Tigers Group (FTG) passed the 200,000 flight hours mark. That's 22.8 years of flight time!One of the largest virtual airlines in existence, FTG includes: VA France, Air Tahiti Nui, Air Pacific, Aloha Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Malaysia, Singapore Airlines, South African, Srilankan, Swiss, Thai, Vietnam Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic - Blue - Express.Much of FTGs high level of activity can be attributed to the fact that FTG has redefined virtual aviation! In other virtual airlines when you become a pilot your only job is to complete a flight for the same airline. Day after day, month after month, year after year. For this reason many pilots choose to join several VA's or quit over time. Who would want to fly the same planes and routes all the time? Boring... but not with FTG.You can fly for all of FTG's virtual airlines representing some of the best and most exotic airlines around the world. As a pilot you are able to fly short island hops to exotic locations or even trans-Atlantic flights on the Concorde.Because all of FTG's VAs share advanced automation features, a pilot only needs to sign up once. Then with a single pilot ID, a pilot can log in to all of the virtual airlines. A pilot can file a PIREP at any of FTG's virtual airlines and it will always count towards his or her total flight hours and rank!This concept has created a very diverse groups of Flight Simulator enthusiasts.FTG offerS a diverse and up-to-date route network with new and exotic destinations such as New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Bangkok, Male, and much of Europe. FTG's success can also be attributed to its having become a place to meet real pilots, flightsimmers and real aviation buffs, make friends from all around the world and share our trials and tribulations within Flight Simulator.For more information, visit, learn, and perhap join. You won't regret it! http://www.cpavirtual.org/Virgin/

... with this group. I used to be a pilot for Virgin. I would fly very regularly. Then, one day, they stopped accepting my PIREPs, and I was locked out of pilot pages at their websites. I e-mailed them to try to clear the situation up, but never received a response. E-mailed again, no response. I eventually gave up.I fly for a different VA now.I'm not suggesting that my experience was in any typical- hopefully it's not. I just didn't feel that there was a lot of support for my questions/comments.Alex Momeyer

This surprised me because I, and my peers, answer all emails w/in 24 hours and usually less. But I've only been the CEO for a short time, so I checked with other managers and it appears that what may have happened is that the email was misdirected to an email account that wasn't monitored. I'm sorry your experience wasn't a positive one and apologize for that. When I became a manager, what was stressed above all was to be responsive to the concerns of pilots - and that's clearly the ethic here.Glad to hear that you're happy with your new VA. If you ever decide you'd like to fly with Virgin again, I'd be happy to hear from you.

As the founder of the group you have my sincere apologies. Our CEO for Virgin VAs at the time was sick and he wasn't able to check his email and we were unaware about it for some time.But now we have a new CEO at Virgin VAs who is responsive and takes very good care of her members.All the best,Eric Thorntonwww.virtualairline.org

Like Eric said this has changed now. Our previous CEO of Virgin VA's was eventually unable to take care of the job so we had to make a few adjustments at the management of the VA.I'm terribly sorry for what you experienced at Virgin VA's. I strongly believe in rapid and accurate replies to pilots' questions, and what happened definitely wasn't our intention.I wish to see you at our VA's once again! Please e-mail me if you have any questions!Best regards,

I appreciate these replies. I had a feeling there was some explanation that I was unable to obtain. What I surmise now is that my queries fell into a gap in things, the gap was due to unusal circumstances, and the situation has been addressed and corrected.I will say that what I enjoyed was the variety of airlines as well as destinations. I am quite content where I am now (NWVA) and don't anticipate moving, but if I did, I would definitely reconsider FTG due to these posts.Again, thank you for facilitating a bit of closure for me.Alex Momeyer