VARO News week of April 26 2004

Well another week another VARO news. Racing was excellent on Saturday as five
of VARO's best battled it out at KDVT. I for one can say that all races were
very close but in the end Jimi came out on top with his first career Gold
victory. After the victory and due to the absence of Awolf from the race the
F1 point standings were shaken up a bit. Sryth is now in the lead with two
gold race finishes under his belt and Jimi and Maple One are not far behind.
This Saturday we will see the Unlimiteds take to the KDVT course. There
are a lot of pilots gunning for the top unlimited spot should make for some
excellent racing.

Important News
All this week I am going to conducting tests of new voice communication
software. During scheduled practices. I have all the candidates installed and
ready to test we just need to try them out. The candidates are:

BattleCom
http://www.battlecom.org/

Comm Center
http://www.randomsoftware.com/ccenter/index-en.html

Roger Wilco
http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com/

Another possibility is to stick with TS and simply log out when racing. It
seems to be working aside from the occassional lag we are seeing solid laps
from everyone including pilots on dial-up.

Scheduling news
I have been working out the fall season and it looks like we can have a total
of 3 seasons a year.

Spring:
April,May,June,

Fall:
August,September,October

Winter:
December,January,Febuary

This will give pilots 3 months a year off from racing as well as offer year
round racing. Also each season will have to have a minimum of 5 pilots in
order for the season to start. I also plan to add courses into the VARO
system and rotate them each season.

Development News
Transponder OPTIONAL beta should be up very soon. I am in the process of
coding in as much error traping as I possible can to prevent the "crash to
desktop" problems. The goal is to catch any errors that will cause a major
crash and handle them internally so that pilots are not forced to leave FS to
fix the problem. Once I have this code in place I will release the new
OPTIONAL Beta. Note, the current version will still be usable but will not be
available for download once I release the newer version.

VARO Racer Vol2 "Legends
Pond Racer is heading over to Maple One's shop today to have start the flight
model process. If anyone had any information on Pond Racer please forward the
information on to Maple One so that we can get a accurate flight model as a
basis for the Unlimited Flight Model.

Courses
Looks like we are going "down under" as least for a couple races. I have
started scouting some airports in Australia. Jimi has been kind enough to give
me a list of some good spots to go racing. If anyone one has any other
suggestions for courses I am always open. I am especially looking for courses
outside the US. Just make sure there is enough open area on one side of the
airport to put pylons down. It doens't have to be realistic but I don't want
to be flying to close to a large city

Boards
Lots of action on the VARO boards lately special in the Race Committee
section. Committee members stay posted. Proposals will turning into polls very
soon.

VARO Promotion
A very good idea was posted to the Race Committee. So I am going to implement
it. Here is the plan:

For every "original post" to a new flight sim or air racing related forum that
pilot will recieve 2 bonus points. By the word original I mean that the first
VARO pilot to post in that particular forum will get the points.

For every new pilot that results from the post the posting pilot will recieve
5 bonus points.

A link to each forum post must be put into the VARO Message Board so that I
can check it out. All points will be added toward the overall championship.


VARO Awards
Very soon the roster page will be filling up with color from the awards I am
working on. Each award will be represented by a graphic and will have a
description attached. Below is a list of awards that are planned

Fastest Lap
1 for each course, WIll be held until the lap is bested

Gold
Each gold participant will recieve this award

Silver
Each gold participant will recieve this award

Bronze
Each gold participant will recieve this award(when necessary)

Unlimited Champion
Winner of the Unlimited Series

F1 Champion
Winner of the F1 Series

Over All Champion
Winner of the Combined Class Points

Manufacturer
Goes to pilot flying with that Manufacturer

Rookie of the Year
Goes to the best pilot in there first VARO season

Most Valuable Pilot
Goes to pilot the best represents the vision and goal of VARO

Spring 2004 Badge
Goes to all participants of the Spring 2004 series

VARO Race Committee
Goes to all member of VARO race committee

Air Boss
Goes to any airboss certified pilot

Certified Pilot
Goes to every pilot that is a Certified VARO Pilot

VARO Staff
Goes to members of the VARO Staff

Below each name in the Roster will be kind of like a medal board, these awards
will go there.