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About Austrian Virtual
It´s a crazy hobby ....
Let me tell you how it all started for me: 1981 I bought my first microcomputer, a ZX81 from Sinclair. And there was a flightsimulator available for it. So I bought this program on an audio tape. It took 10 minutes to load it into the computer and it was nothing compared to current flightsimulators. But from that moment I was addicted to flightsimulation.
Well, I will not tell you historical notes about my next computers (C64, Amiga) in detail. All of them were also flightsimulator machines for me. But I still just departed from Meigs Airfield and did VFR flights at the surrounding area, nothing more. By the way, if you want to know more about the flightsimulation history it might be a good idea to visit http://fshistory.simflight.com.
And then the era of the PCs came up. I started to use Microsoft Flightsimulator "seriously" in 1997. Fllightsimulator 98 was brandnew in the stores and it was the first time I was reading the manuals. And it was the beginning of the Internet era, the first Virtual Airlines started to operate in the world wide web. I joined Tradewind Carribean and after a few months I decided to open my own branch of Tradewind - the mediterranean VA. Well, this project died after just a few months.
But I had gotten desire on more VA business. So on December 1st 1998 Austrian Virtual Airlines started to operate. It was not more or less then any other VA at this time. We did not have a real schedule, just a few destinations were available. Our fleet consisted of two or three (bad) airplanes. But within a few weeks more then fifty pilots joined us and very soon some of them joined our staff. This was the time when the first good freeware airplanes were available for our pilots and our schedule grew fast. I guess it was January 1999 when the first intercontinental flights to New York were officially available for our pilots.
Do You remember SATCO? This was the predecessor of VATSIM using the same basic technology like today. But broadband was not widely available and voice communication was unreliable and unsatisfying. But 1999 was definitly the Year of online flying for me!
Another history lesson: Just after a few months later Franz Sauer joined us. Franz is an experienced programmer. And he did not want to submit flightreports via an input mask via the web. So he started to develop some programs - FlyAVA was born. Flightsim 2000 was already there, for the first time it had 3D-elevation terrain, better textures, all world airports and navaids database (Jeppesen) but it was a real buggy piece of software. Well, we all loved and hated it.
Meanwhile it was the year 2000 and more than 200 pilots more or less often flew for us. Austrian Virtual Airlines was still not as professional like today, we had a very simple website with just a few basic features. But our community was still growing fast and, believe it or not, our meetings (mostly at Vienna International Airport) were well visited. Sometimes nearly forty people came.
FS2002 was a great version for us. Maybe some of you remember it´s great new features: It offered improved 3D-elevation (mesh-scenery), AutoGen buildings, trees, virtual cockpit with working instruments and AI aircraft at airports and in the air. Do You remember its smooth performance?
Meanwhile the headquarter components of the FlyAVA system moved to a dedicated server machine at home and automatically updated all data twice a day. This server (an old 500Mhz P3 machine with a mirrored diskset) is still operating fine here. And we were still counting pilots, passing 500.
2003 brought some large changes with itself. Our well known YahooGroups were replaced by a forum. Not all of us were lucky with this decision, but I believe it was correct to do it. A few months earlier some very creative and innovative staff members decided to renew the complete website. Philipp Bauer and Rene Billani still do a great developing and artwork job for us! This was also the time where we changed our name to Austrian Virtual Airlines Group, reflecting the changes of the real Austrian Airlines now including Tyrolean and Lauda.
With version 2004 "A Century of Flight" we received a program more or less the FS 2002 as we would liked to have it. You all know it. It has great weather and clouds. It has nice mesh and autogen, much better AI aircraft and ATC. We lost some important functions in FlyAVA. But don´t expect this story to end now! A new management team and new staff members bring new ideas in and there is much more potential in the Austrian Virtual Airlines Group - and thanks to Rainer Meisel the future development of the FlyAVA system looks promising.
We leave ourselves from the future over ashes :-)
Michael Mrak
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