Lionwing

Flying the Compass Airwego Virtual Airline Group Press Release March 2021 The core purpose of a Virtual Airline, from the viewpoint of Airwego, is to provide a platform for its members to enjoy the hobby while expanding their own knowledge of flight simulation. This belief has been at the heart of our VA since we took to the virtual skies in 2000. Through many iterations of Microsoft Flight Simulator, P3D & X-Plane we have endeavoured to support those sims to the best of our abilities with the resources available as we strive to fulfil this belief. Following a review of our long standing Aircraft Policy we concluded a change was required to continue to support both multiple platforms and allow our crew members to maximise the opportunity to fly their favoured aircraft. Traditionally virtual airlines would allocate a single aircraft type to a route. We have moved away from this approach and created Aircraft Groups. Aircraft within a Group will have similar runway , range and payload performance and so allows the aircraft within a Group to operate the same route and ultimately give our crew the choice of aircraft that can be used on that route. Prior to booking your flight you will see within the schedules the Aircraft Group allocated to a route. On retrieving your booking with Compass2020 (our in-house developed Flight Reporting ACARS software) you can then select which aircraft within the Group you will be using. From the viewpoint of a virtual aviator who has perhaps has invested either time or money into their favoured aircraft type this increases the number of routes available from our current schedule database of over two thousand routes. This new policy extends right across our virtual airline including our highly popular library of tours. If you would like to find out more about a virtual airline that promises “minimum rules, maximum fun” then please visit our website - www.airwego.uk Facebook | Twitter | Discord | Instagram

Flying the Compass Airwego Virtual Airline Group Press Release May 2020 It is a little over twenty years ago since our first website was published and the Airwego Virtual Airline Group has this month moved to a brand new website. The original concept took shape in the final months of 2019 and has been developed through 2020. Very much at the heart of the project was to make the core content of the VA easily accessible in an “easy on the eye” design concept. A “Pilot Dashboard” presents our crew with an overview of their VA membership showing their virtual logbook, flights they have booked along with a snapshot of their VA Awards and Tour progress. Our extensively revised Tour suite compliments our comprehensive set of schedules operating from our twenty bases flying aircraft from Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Embraer. All of our aircraft are available for both prominent freeware and payware aircraft via our easy to navigate Download centre. Also available from our Download Centre is our custom flight tracking software - Compass2020. This brand new program has been developed “in house” and compliments our website based Crew Centre in firstly, assisting in vital pre-flight preparation, tracking your flight and ultimately logging your flight in our databases all with minimal “key presses” so you can focus on enjoying your flight. Compass2020 will also assist in ensuring that all of our flight-plans are accurate as our internal reporting systems will flag if a route different from those in our database is entered and used prompting a review against current navigational databases. Supporting the release of Compass2020 is comprehensive user documentation detailing it’s usage following a long standing convention in the VA of making our hobby as accessible to as wide a range of people as we can. We understand that at first glance flight simulation can appear complex and to some extent exclusive however we firmly believe in creating a friendly environment in which all are welcome. This maxim is applied throughout the Airwego Virtual Airline Group manifesting itself in easy to install aircraft, detailed resources on how to expand your knowledge of virtual aviation and from our experienced Staff Team (with over fifty years of experience) a desire to share our knowledge. If you would like to find out more about Airwego Virtual Airline Group then visit our website at www.airwego.uk. Airwego Virtual Airline Group - Flying the Compass since 2000.

Flying the Compass Airwego Virtual Airline Group Press Release September 2019 The year 2000, to some, will feel a long time ago.. To others perhaps not so. After the furore of the “millennium bug” had settled down a small virtual airline opened in March 2000 with flights from three bases across Northern England. Airwego, a slightly tongue in cheek name some would say, started life with bases at Humberside, Liverpool and Manchester airports with a quirky livery and diverse fleet. Free from the restraints of basing its operations on a real world airline, Airwego was the vehicle whose course was determined by the creativity of it’s team. With traditional fixed wing schedules supported by a “classic props” division in the Caribbean, Vertigo a helicopter division flying initially to the gas and oil rig industry in the North Sea and a “shuttle” division filling in the “niche” to small regional airports Airwego flourished attracting virtual aviators who sought a home for their hobby. The “crew” should always be at the heart of the VA. Without them a VA has no life, no sense of community and honestly, no purpose. Over many years Airwego has been blessed with a loyal and dedicated crew who continue to fly with the VA nearly twenty years after its inception. That core crew have been supplemented and swelled by virtual aviators who have sought out a virtual airline where “minimum rules - maximum fun” is more than just a slogan...it’s the DNA of the VA! Mirroring the timeline of Airwego was a virtual airline carrying “JGA” titles. JGA was similar to Airwego in many ways with a focus on enjoying the hobby and merged with Airwego in early 2018 with the primary title of the VA morphing to “The Airwego Group”. As the Airwego Group approaches twenty years of existence (we are actually older than some of our crew) and continues to evolve with multi-platform support and with a deep library of resources we can certainly offer a solid foundation for flight simulation enthusiasts. Fancy immersing yourself in our “regional” schedules flying the Q400, E170 or CRJ...we got that! Twin Otter fan...no problem...fly the Fjords of Norway or the Islands of the Caribbean. Want to cruise the busy skies of Europe? Take your pick from fifteen bases across the continent offering passenger and cargo flights or maybe you see yourself ferrying “high end clients” as flight crew onboard one of our AirweGOLD Tours? Whether you are looking for a new virtual community to explore or just curious for more information about The Airwego Group we do encourage you to visit our website and perhaps browse for a uniform in your size? You know you want to...come and “Fly The Compass” http://www.airwego.org.uk/

Does anyone have the .bgl file linked to above please? The link appears to be dead.

Thank you for the great explanation!

Is there a relationship between the Texture Resolution [OPTIONS>WORLD] and Texture Resolution [OPTIONS>DISPLAY] in terms of the visuals represented in sim or do they influence separate elements of the virtual world?

ANNOUNCING HEATHROW ARRIVALS!! Over a period of time our management team has been asked why we never had Heathrow in our base schedules. The answer was it has been the Airwego Group policy historically to concentrate on more regional airports as our bases. However we have listened to those voices and are proud to announce that effective immediately we will commence cargo operations from EGLL Heathrow. If successful and well used we shall in the future be considering passenger operations as well. For now we are stationing a mixed fleet of Boeing 757F, 747F and 777F at Heathrow serving initially 20 no. destinations both on the European continent and worldwide. So lots to enjoy for those with both short/medium and long haul preferences. You will be aware that Heathrow carries one of the highest online controller presence in both Vatsim and IVAO. We would urge those of you who have experience in these online organisations to “fly the Compass” and let the Airwego callsign be a regular for all to hear at Heathrow. In doing this it goes without saying that you will be representing the good name of Airwego so having charts at the ready and using correct procedure will be a must for all of us. We hope you enjoy! www.airwego.org.uk

Great work...downloading now for a test flight!

I would recommend your presets Adam. I have used them for around twelve months and think they look great.

@Nickybird - the AFCAD mentioned by Alex fixed the problem.

Did anyone get this scenery working in P3Dv4? I have missing buildings and the whole airport looks "default" despite being added to the scenery library?

Apologies for coming back to this post. Would it not be logical for scenery disabled by click the Group Node to also be shown as disabled (i.e in red) in the scenery list?

Great...thank you for the reply and a fantastic piece of software. Richard

Morning all. I've just updated to 1.33 and spent sometime setting up groups. Now when I disable a group ( by unticking the group box) and the therefore the scenery in it should I also expect to see the scenery disabled under the scenery category as well? Thank you.

I have just recently discovered the excellent Addon Organiser by the author of this topic. When running it I checked for "encoding errors" with the result shown in the image below; An example of the text from one of the .xml files reported with the error is shown below; P3D is installed in my D Drive while the "Documents" folder is located on E. Only one adon-on.xml is not reporting a error but I can see now obvious differences in the format of the text. All the problem add-on.xml have been created by the installers for the various products and function / show up fine in P3D. Curious?

Airwego Press Release April 2017 The first three months of 2017 have seen a consolidation of operations within the Airwego Group with a focus on ensuring the key projects launched last year continue to achieve their objectives. With “Norge” now well established and offering routes from both Bodo and Bergen our crew now have nearly one thousand flights to choose from across our network of bases from Aberdeen, Bristol, East Midlands, Humberside, Manchester, Southend, San Juan, Stansted and Palermo with all sectors supported by a comprehensive suite of flight-plans for not just the default “GPS” of FS9 / FSX but also PMDG, Majestic Dash, Qualitywings and Aerosoft. Pilot recruitment has seen a steady flow of new pilots joining Airwego but importantly the number of active pilots within the roster has improved. This increased activity has filtered through to both the social media accounts and forum with with both outlets “buzzing” with activity. Notably several videos of Airwego flights have been published with many positive comments being posted. 2017 hasn’t been without it’s new projects as Airwego continues to develop. With the retirement of the B757-200 from our mainstream fleet the aircraft has been put into service as part of our brand new “high end luxury charter” division - AirweGOLD. ‘GOLD will be offering a series of tours across the continents visiting key locations using the B757-200 with a “virtually refitted” cabin carrying just thirty eight passengers. A video introducing the new livery can be viewed at the link below; AirweGOLD - Livery Preview Each tour will be supported with extensive documentation included flight-plans, scenery list and a “Travel Brochure” which will feature detail on each stop on the tour. The first tour to be published, and available now, covers Australasia and Oceania. With Spring arriving across our bases in the United Kingdom flights to the Canary Islands and Mediterranean holiday destinations have returned to our schedule. These flights, previously flown under our “Sunspots” brand, mirror those offered by real world tour operators and will fly thousands of virtual holiday makers away from their daily lives for a precious few weeks in the sunshine! The next few months will see a review of both our long-haul and cargo schedules with plans to introduce new destinations to both. Our cargo schedule utilises both the MD-11 (iFDG & PMDG) and the B757-200 (POSKY and Qualitywings) but plans to introduce new routes will see the requirement for a new aircraft type to join the fleet. Airwego offers a relaxed environment in which to enjoy flight simulation. We have no minimum requirements to join our VA nor is there any entrance exam. If you wish to fly with a virtual airline that can help you expand your knowledge of virtual aviation and meet like minded people then why not visit our website? Thank you. www.airwego.org.uk

Thanks guys! I did read about DT's B757. It has had quite a life and now features a incredible cabin!

I have been involved with one VA pretty much since 2000. In that time the B757 has pretty much been a constant member of the fleet wearing many liveries. I was looking through my screenshot library recently and have pulled this selection of shots together showing it's evolution... Hopefully one more trip to the paint shop before the B757 stands down from mainstream service.

The Dash 8-Q400 is becoming one of my favourite aircraft and well suited to my preferred route length of generally anything under two hours. Over the Christmas and New Year break I managed to log a few hours with these images taken on a flight from Bristol (EGGD) to Kerry (EIKY). Taxing to the runway at Bristol with seventy two passengers onboard. Descending into Kerry with the Macgillycuddy's Reeks in the background. The light is fading but we are nicely set on the approach. It is a "tight" ramp at Kerry (even for a Q400) and a nicely detailed airport is available from Eiresim. The flight time was a little over one hour with around 1200 kilos of fuel used. The Q400 is very frugal!

Airwego - Press Release / Update - September 2016 Since opening back in 2000 Airwego has constantly evolved. The website has been redesigned several times, aircraft liveries have been updated, schedules have been published and then republished. However the one constant has been our pilots. A group of individuals that enjoy flying with a virtual airline that offers “Minimal Rules but Maximum Fun”. Recent times are no exception to this evolution with many key projects coming to conclusion over the last few months. Towards the end of 2015 the website came under review. While it served our purposes it did need a redesign to reflect our progression as a virtual airline. Over the course of several months a “test” site was developed to explore the inclusion of new and unique features. Favourite pages ( Flight TV & / Statistics) were retained but many received a facelift (Fleet & Downloads) while many were completely redesigned such as our main page and the Bases page. Initially feedback on the new website was positive with some excellent suggestions for further improvements by our crew which were soon implemented. Via our Forum the website continues to be praised for it’s ease of navigation and interesting features. For many years our livery had remained relatively static with only minor changes made. Committing to redesigning the livery was a major decision but that commitment was dwarfed by the number of hours required to repaint an aircraft Fleet featuring both freeware and payware models. Rob (Airwego Resources Manager) and a team of repainters set about repainting our fleet of freeware (TDS / Project Airbus / Dreamwings / PAD) aircraft and our payware offerings that include Aerosoft Airbus, Majestic Dash 8-Q400, PMDG MD-11, Qualitywings B757, Aerosoft Twin Otter, PMDG B737NGX and the Wilco / Feel There E-Jets. After several months of work our new livery was released and still retains our famous “compass” logo that has been in place in 2000. Our schedules have now been completely overhauled with our bases at Bristol (EGGD), Humberside (EGNJ), Manchester (EGCC), Palermo (LICJ) and San Juan (TJSJ) joined by flight operations from Aberdeen (EGPD), Bergen (ENBR), Bodo (ENBR) and Southend (EGMC). Each of our bases has been selected to ensure firstly decent freeware scenery is available and in many cases this is complemented by a excellent high quality payware product also being available. How the airport operates in the real world airport is also key and during the schedule design process the timetables for the relevant airport are often referenced with a “sprinkling” of creativity for added appeal. Supporting all of our routes are a comprehensive suite of ready to use FMC flight-plans based on current navigation databases. As well as being offered in the default FS9 / FSX GPS format these FMC flight-plans are available for key payware products from the Aerosoft Airbus, Majestic Dash 8-Q400, PMDG B737NGX / MD-11, Level D B767, Wilco / Feelthere Embraer E-Jets and Quality Wings B757. Operationally we have implemented two key changes. Perhaps the most high profile has been the introduction of cargo flights from East Midlands (EGNX) in the UK. Utilising a fleet of B757’s & MD-11’s they operate a network of flights across the UK & Europe into key freight hubs. With both of the aircraft available as freeware and payware models (Qualitywings & PMDG) our cargo flights are gaining popularity as it present the opportunity to fly “heavies” on relatively short flights. Our second key operational change sees the introduction of our “Regional” brand. Regional flights are operated by aircraft with a maximum seating capacity of seventy two. This includes the de Havilland Twin Otter, Embraer E170 & Bombardier Dash 8-Q400. The Twin Otter operates from Bergen, Bodo and Bristol on routes requiring its short runway performance. From Bristol this includes flights to the Isles of Scilly, the Lake District and destinations within Wales. Twin Otter routes from Bodo & Bergen link remote communities in Norway in a series of multi-link flights that take in the stunning scenery of Norway. Our other European bases (Aberdeen, Humberside, Manchester, Palermo & Southend) also offer Regional flights linking not only each of our bases but a blend of major international European airports and interesting regional airports with one of our criteria being that they have high quality freeware scenery available. Outside of Europe Airwego has a Caribbean base at San Juan (TJSJ) in Puerto Rico. This base was originally established in the early 2000’s and was reopened in 2015. The fleet is very similar to our European operation with the addition of the A318. A varied schedule from San Juan sees flights across the Caribbean and into North, South & Central America. The route network includes a series of “Island Hop” flights in the Twin Otter taking in some very challenging approaches. San Juan also links into our European route network with flights to both Manchester & Palermo using the B767-300ER. Enjoyment of Flight Simulation is a top priority for Airwego. With this in mind our policy are to keep the rules to a minimum while encouraging pilots of all skill levels to join our community and have fun. Our Management Team have decades of experience in virtual aviation and always look to engage with our pilot base to ensure they enjoy “Flying The Compass”. Thank you for reading. www.airwego.org.uk Airwego - Facebook Airwego - Twitter

Thanks for the comments. A"little" whoosh on No1 would get his attention for sure... :wink: I did take a look at the Hangar FS stuff but it seems to have performance issues during the cruise...couldn't get it over .7mach oddly. The Dreamwings Embraer (as shown in some of the shots above) is aliased to the CRJ panel but as far as I know the VC cannot be added which is a shame.

Until recently I had rarely flown the Embraer E170. Not for any good reason I had just simply overlooked it. With this in mind I set about several flights during August initially planning to use the Wilco / Feel There aircraft. However as this product has problems operating within Windows 10 I took a closer look at the Dreamwing E170 which itself is quite a old product but being less complicated than it's payware cousin suited my needs. (Just need to find a decent panel to got with it.) So here you go...a few shots of the E170 flying around Europe... Tail cam heading into Humberside (EGNJ) All good for the approach. Nice detail on the gear. Taxing at Palermo (LICJ) In your own time my friend.... Hope you enjoyed flying with me....

AWG7208 - Palermo (LICJ) to Bergen (ENBR) With the recent introduction of new Airwego schedules our established base at Palermo now offers a four times weekly flight to our new base in Norway - Bergen. The inaugural flight took place yesterday using one of our new Embraer E-170. With a flight time of just under four hours this important link between two of our bases is expected to be very popular with both pilots and passengers alike. Screenshots below.... Final preparations underway for departure. Turning north shortly after takeoff from Runway 25 with Sicily in the background. THIS SPACE LEFT BLANK AS THE CRUISE SECTION OF A FLIGHT IS NOT THAT EXCITING. Descending into Bergen. All lined up with a little crosswind and definitely raining. Nice profile shot of the Embraer E-170 by Dreamwings. Touchdown and easy on the brakes. Hope you like the shots. Feel free to drop into our Crew-Room for a coffee and a chat. @Airwego

Thank you for the kind comments.

I certainly clocked up a few air miles during May. On approach to Montserrat in the Twin Otter. A new route for Airwego was launched during May with regular flight between San Juan (TJSJ) at Havana (MUHA) using the Airbus A318. Romeo Delta loading up at Bristol. Departing East Midlands (EGNX) with the MD-11. (Repaint of the PMDG MD-11 also available) Heading into Ibiza (LEIB) for a week of some "banging choons"... Just crossing the River Humber (with the Humber Bridge in the background) before landing at Humberside (EGNJ). Well someone has to do the night shift... The Twin Otter...a truly amazing aircraft.