The VATSIM Board of Governors announced today that the network has exceeded 80,000 active members for the first time. An active member is any member of the VATSIM network who has connected to VATSIM at least once within the last 6 months. This means that the number of members discovering and connecting to VATSIM to enhance their flight simulation hobby is growing,
VATSIM President, Gunnar Lindahl, welcomed the news and has made a short statement.
“This shows not only that our network is going from strength to strength in terms of activity, but also that we are successfully reaching out to enthusiasts across the community who hadn’t yet found us and are now using VATSIM as that extra layer of realism to their flying, which is great news. As always, praise must go to the hundreds of volunteers across VATSIM who not only fly and control, but put in huge numbers of hours in making our hobby bigger and better.
But as a Board and a network we are not complacent: we know the membership as a whole have an urgent wish-list, particularly on the technology side. It’s fair to say that we have been too slow to respond to changing technology in the past, but we’re excited to accept this challenge as our #1 priority and having seen first-hand some of the work that is ongoing, I’m excited for the future of VATSIM. I’m looking forward to the team sharing more news, including specifics, with the community very soon.”
Our plan to modernise VATSIM and to make the network fit for the future include releasing a new voice codec, but will also deliver other significant improvements to the member experience. In April we finally welcomed a fully staffed Board for the first time in years, including the crucial technical positions, and since then we’ve recruited a large number of volunteers from the developer community to collaborate on these projects. To prepare us for this, we’ve already significantly loosened up the Non-Disclosure Agreement which has been seen as too restrictive in the past and we’re excited to make this a community-led effort, co-ordinated by our VP Technical Development, Zach Biesse-Fitton. Once they are in a position to do so, Zach and the team will be sharing periodic updates on their work and will no doubt be canvassing for further input from the community.
Finally, the Board of Governors would like to take this opportunity to thank every member of VATSIM for their continued support and contributions to the network. VATSIM could not exist without you!
VATSIM stands for Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network. VATSIM hosts an online “world” which allows flight simulation enthusiasts to connect their simulator at home to fly with thousands of others in real time, simulating real air traffic procedures. The beauty of it is that VATSIM also has virtual air traffic controllers who are trained to guide you to your destination. It really is as real as it gets. Best of all, it is completely free. VATSIM has over 80,000 active members all across the world.
