vTUI Group

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES

OM-A

Prepared by: Chris Dobison

Issued & Approved by: Chris Dobison

DRAFT - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Version 0.2
Effective: TBA
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Revision History

Version
Issue Date Content Summary
Number
0.1 TBA Initial Draft
0.2 TBA Added Sections 4 & 5

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Definitions

Abbreviation Definition
AGL Above Ground Level
AMSL Above Mean Sea Level
AOC Air Operator’s Certificate
FCOM Flight Crew Operating Manual
PF Pilot Flying
PIC Pilot In Command
PM Pilot Monitoring
SOP Standard Operating Procedure

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Table of Contents
Revision History ................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Definitions............................................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................................................. 5
1. General .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 7
1.2 Included Airlines ....................................................................................................................................................... 7
1.3 Management Structure ........................................................................................................................................... 8
2. Social Media ......................................................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Definition of Social Media ..................................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Code of Conduct ....................................................................................................................................................... 9
2.3 Social Media Platforms ........................................................................................................................................... 9
3. Policies ................................................................................................................................................................................ 11
3.1 Routes ...................................................................................................................................................................... 11
3.2 Activity Requirements.......................................................................................................................................... 11
3.3 Double Logging ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
3.4 Pausing ..................................................................................................................................................................... 11
3.5 PIREP Comments .................................................................................................................................................. 11
3.6 VA Materials............................................................................................................................................................ 11
3.7 PIREP Reviews ....................................................................................................................................................... 12
3.8 Simulation Rate ..................................................................................................................................................... 12
3.9 Aircraft Substitution............................................................................................................................................. 12
3.10 Liveries ..................................................................................................................................................................... 12
3.11 Online Flights ......................................................................................................................................................... 12
3.12 Focus Airports ........................................................................................................................................................ 12
4. Beginners Guide to flying on vAMSYS ...................................................................................................................... 13
4.1 Software Requirements ...................................................................................................................................... 13
4.2 Booking a Flight ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
4.3 Flight Tracking.........................................................................................................................................................14
4.4 Any issues.................................................................................................................................................................14
5. PIREP Points ..................................................................................................................................................................... 15
5.1 Landing Rates ......................................................................................................................................................... 15
5.2 Engine Rules ........................................................................................................................................................... 15
5.3 Flaps .......................................................................................................................................................................... 15
5.4 Landing Fuel ............................................................................................................................................................16
5.5 Flying with Friends.................................................................................................................................................16
5.6 Other Points ............................................................................................................................................................16

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1. General
1.1 Introduction
vTUI was formed at the start of January 2021, with the intention of answering the niche on
vAMSYS for flying routes for the TUI group of AOCs. It runs on the vAMSYS network which
provides the backend engineering for us to display the dashboard and routes, and there is a
community forum and Discord server available for our members to use.

1.2 Included Airlines

The current airlines included by the vTUI Group as of the time of publication are:

Airline Country Description

TUI Airways is the largest of the five AOCs. It has 64 aircraft
and flies from 26 British airports to 109 destinations
United worldwide. It was formed by the merger of Thomsonfly
TUI Airways
Kingdom (formerly Britannia Airways) and First Choice Airways
(formerly Air 2000). The airline was the last TUI airline to be
rebranded.
TUI fly Belgium has operated since March 2004 to more than
105 destinations around Europe, the Red Sea, Caribbean,
TUI fly Canary Islands, US and Africa. Since 2012 it has operated
Belgium
Belgium scheduled flights as well as charter services. It was formerly
known as Jetairfly, and rebranded to TUI fly Belgium in late
2016.
TUI fly Deutschland has operated since 1972, under the
TUI fly name Hapag-Lloyd Flug, and rebranded to TUIfly in 2007. It
Germany
Deutschland has yet again rebranded as TUI fly Deutschland. It has 40
aircraft, flying to 39 destinations.
Since 2005, TUI fly Netherlands has operated charter flights
from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to destinations in
TUI fly Southern Europe, North Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin
Netherlands
Netherlands America. It was formerly known as Arkefly, rebranded to
Arke in 2013, and rebranded again to its current name in
2015.
TUI fly Nordic flies from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and
Denmark Norway. They fly holidaymakers travelling with the following
TUI fly Finland tour operators; TUI Sverige (Sweden), TUI Finland (Finland),
Nordic Norway TUI Norge (Norway) and TUI Danmark (Denmark). There
Sweden was a slight name change, from TUIfly Nordic to TUI fly
Nordic.

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1.3 Management Structure

Chief Operating
Officer

Operations
Team

Fleet Events /
Managers Marketing
Pilot
Experience

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2. Social Media
2.1 Definition of Social Media
For the purposes of this document, the term “Social Media” shall include all forms of
communication within the Virtual Airline (including but not restricted to the Community
Forum, Discord, and our Social Media platforms).

2.2 Code of Conduct

The following rules are expected to be adhered to (including staff members) at all times:
 Keep conversations / GIFs clean and PG. Under 18s are permitted to join the VA,
therefore any bad language will not be tolerated. (A maximum of two warnings
depending on the severity will be issued before temporary Social Media removal is
enforced).
 Absolutely no talk about illegal activities (software or otherwise). This will result in
an immediate termination from the VA.
 Be patient - do not expect to ask a question and have it answered immediately.
Please don’t spam in the hope of getting an answer quicker either.
 Respect others - act as you wish to be treated yourself.
 Please remember we have all nationalities within the VA, therefore the use of
gaming slang “RIP”, “F” and similar will be removed. Continued use of this may
result in a warning or temporary Social Media removal.
 Whilst your own social media accounts are your business, any posts tagging any of
the vTUI accounts shall also adhere to these procedures.
Hopefully this simple Code of Conduct will help everyone have a more enjoyable experience
within vTUI.

2.3 Social Media Platforms

vTUI has a presence on the following Social Media platforms. Pilots are encouraged (but not
required) to follow, like, subscribe and rebroadcast any posts to enhance our Social Media
footprint.
 Facebook
 Instagram
 Twitter

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3. Policies
3.1 Routes
vTUI has a policy of providing real world schedules to book wherever possible. However as
a result of the current ongoing COVID pandemic causing a large proportion of routes to
temporarily cease operating, we have reinstated a number of routes across our AOCs which
would have operated had the current situation not happened.
Wherever possible, these routes are annotated in the booking comments section that the
data may not be entirely accurate.
We have a dedicated #report-a-route channel on our Discord server where we encourage
any reports of missing / broken routes to be reported. Please read the instructions at the
head of the channel though before posting anything there to save everyone’s time.
Responses to this will be provided by the Operations team in the read only #route-
feedback channel.
As the Operations team are volunteers and working on the VA in their own time, please
allow at least 24 hours after a new route has started flying for Operations staff to enter the
flight in vAMSYS before reporting it.

3.2 Activity Requirements

At the moment, there are no minimum activity requirements.

3.3 Double Logging

Double flight logging for other VAs is prohibited, and anyone found to be doing so will be
subject to immediate removal from the VA. This rule does not apply to “logbook
applications” such as Volanta, ProjectFly and SimToolkit Pro. If in doubt, please ask a
member of the Operations Team via a support ticket on Discord.

3.4 Pausing
It is recognised that real life must take priority, and therefore vTUI permits the use of
pause in flight. There is no need to make a PIREP comment regarding this.

3.5 PIREP Comments

Unless specifically required to do so, please avoid adding a PIREP comment to your flight as
doing so will make it fail automatic validation and go to manual review. If a reply is required
by you then your PIREP status will show “Reply Required” and you will be unable to book a
new flight until you have commented.

3.6 VA Materials
All materials created for vTUI are for Internal distribution only. Anyone found to be
distributing documentation or liveries outside the VA will be subject to a warning.

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3.7 PIREP Reviews

Occasionally, PIREPs will fail the automatic review process. This can be for any number of
reasons but should be annotated within the PIREP. Unless a comment is required (see
section 3.5), then you do not need to take any further action - a member of staff will review
the PIREP and provide feedback if required as soon as possible. Please do not create
support tickets or ask for PIREPs to be reviewed - we have a notification that shows how
many are in the queue, and the queue is regularly checked. This will not affect your ability
to book and fly another flight.

3.8 Simulation Rate

vTUI has a strict 1x simulation rate policy. Other than accidental simulation rate
adjustments (which require a PIREP comment), any flights using adjusted simulation rate
are subject to invalidation.

3.9 Aircraft Substitution

You are required to fly the same aircraft type that you book. You may use a different
registration (although the same AOC is preferred), however you are not permitted to book
a B738 and fly a B752 for example, with only the following exception:
If an aircraft type is not available in vAMSYS but has operated in the past 7 days in real life
on that exact route, then you may book any available type and fly the real world type.
However this must be accompanied by a PIREP comment with a FlightRadar24 link for
manual validation.

3.10 Liveries
We require flights to be conducted in a TUI livery. We provide a number of these liveries
free of charge thanks to our dedicated Fleet Managers, however the internet is a great place
to look for anything that we haven’t covered. Any flights utilising liveries other than TUI will
be subject to rejection / invalidation. (The only exception to this are the B737-800 aircraft
currently operating for TUI displaying their old or hybrid colour schemes - Eurowings or
Sunwing - however this only applies to the specific registrations that are operating for the
TUI group). If in doubt, please ask a member of the Operations Team via a support ticket
on Discord.

3.11 Online Flights

We do not require you to fly online, however should you choose to do so for vTUI you are
representing the VA therefore we expect a professional standard of online conduct to be
followed. If flying online it is requested that you add RMK/virtualtui.wordpress.com to your
flight plan remarks.

3.12 Focus Airports

Our current policy aims to have a minimum of two Focus Airports at any one time - one
base airport (rotated monthly) and one “downroute” or non-base airport (rotated
fortnightly). These will be announced in the vTUI Discord server.

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4. Beginners Guide to flying on vAMSYS

4.1 Software Requirements
Aside from the obvious (a legal copy of Prepar3D or X-Plane), you will also need to
download the vAMSYS provided flight tracking software known as Pegasus. This is available
from the vTUI Dashboard once you are signed in to vAMSYS and have selected vTUI from
your airlines. Go to Resources then Pegasus ACARS Client.

On this page you can see the requirements, please read the instructions and install Pegasus
along with any other dependents that are listed on the downloads page.

4.2 Booking a Flight

Once you login, and select vTUI from your airlines page, you will need to book a flight. To
do this, use the Flight Centre menu then Book Flight option.

This will display a map of our available destinations from your current location along with
the bases you can book a repositioning flight to (shown with a red pin).
When you select the airport you’d like to go to, click the pin on the map and note the menu
at the left changes:

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You can then book a flight to that airport, jumpseat to it or abandon the idea and have
vAMSYS select you a random airport.
If you click book, you will be taken to a new screen to select the specific flight number (if
there are more than one available). Take care and make sure that the aircraft type you wish
to fly is displayed.

Click on the “+” to open up the Dispatch Options window, where you can change the Flight
Number and Callsign. Select an aircraft type from the dropdown list (the registration does
not have to match, but the type does - see Para 3.9). The route provided is a suggested
route (based wherever possible from real world routings if the flight has flown already),
and the Altitude is also just a suggested one. It is the PIC’s responsibility to select an
appropriate route and level of flight appropriate to the conditions and load.

4.3 Flight Tracking

After you have dispatched your flight you may open Pegasus and start recording. Once you
have shut the engines down, you must click on File PIREP before closing your simulator in
order to transmit the data to us.

4.4 Any issues

This is a very brief overview on how to start flying with us on the vAMSYS Platform. If you
have any specific assistance requirements, please open a ticket in the Discord server where
we will be glad to help.

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5. PIREP Points
5.1 Landing Rates
For many years, sim pilots have been obsessed with landing rates. That is unlikely to ever
change, but we’ve tried to make things as fair as possible. Landing rates are not measured
in fpm in the real world (instead it’s G Force). Due to limitations with the simulator, we
have to record on fpm. Our flight tracking software samples the descent rate every 50ms
(faster than a human reaction) to give us a touchdown rate. Therefore it is more likely to be
more accurate than other landing rate monitors. Please do not ask us to alter your landing
rate because you got a “better” number on a different tracker. The only rate we accept is
the one reported by Pegasus - this ensures consistency and fairness for everyone.
Provided your touchdown is less than -600fpm your PIREP will not fail on landing rate
alone. Anything over -600fpm will be reviewed by staff, with the likely outcome being a
PIREP rejection, and anything heavier than -1000fpm will be invalidated.
The points available for landing rate bands are available to see in Documents then PIREP
Points Manual and are the same for every type we operate.

5.2 Engine Rules

All of our fleet will earn you a bonus 10 points if you start the number 2 (right hand) engine
before the number 1. There are no points deducted if you don’t.
Cool down / warm up procedures are 3 minutes for each. This means that you must let the
engines thermally stablise for 3 minutes after startup before applying takeoff power, and
then also allow for 3 minutes at idle power after landing (taken from when the Pegasus log
records the “Landed in xxx” message) before shutting down. Failure to do so will result in a
-10 penalty for each.

5.3 Flaps
The minimum required takeoff flaps for our fleet are as follows:

Minimum
Type Departure
Flap
B737/B738/B38M 5

B752/B763 5

B788/B789 5

E190 1
There are no exceptions to this. We are aware that some AOCs may authorise a Flaps 1
departure in the B738 however that is impractical to implement within vAMSYS and a
decision has been made to standardise the fleet therefore 5 is the minimum.

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5.4 Landing Fuel

On landing, you must ensure you have planned for sufficient fuel to be remaining in the
tanks to avoid any penalties. The deduction if you land with too little fuel is -50 points.
The minimum required landing fuel for our fleet are as follows:

Minimum
Type Landing Fuel
(kg)
B737/B738/B38M 2000

B752 2000

B763/B788/B789 2500

E190 1500

5.5 Flying with Friends

If you and a friend are flying the same route at the same time, make sure you have each
other added as vAMSYS friends first (click on your name at the top right, then My Friends,
you can then add the other person’s username underneath your map of your flights).
Provided you both book the same route and start recording at the same time, you will both
receive 15 points. The same goes if you fly a shared cockpit flight together, however this
feature is not actively supported by the VA therefore any issues in setting up shared cockpit
will need to be addressed to the relevant developer(s).

5.6 Other Points

There are several other categories where you can pick up extra points. These can all be
viewed for your relevant aircraft type in the PIREP Points Manual.

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