Welcome Back, or better yet welcome to the new an improved home of VARO
There are probably a few people out there that have wondered what happened to VARO some may not care, other may wish that we would just stay down. Rest assured I wouldn't be bringing VARO back unless I felt that we could put on solid fun events that are both challenging for experienced pilots but accessible for even the greenest pilots. In an effort to provide the best experience possible we have made some change some that people will like and some that some purists will call me out on. Overall I feel that the changes make for a better experience.
So What has changed?
No More Points Series(for now)
We are no longer in the business of running a racing series. At least for the time being all races will be self contained events. Each event will run one possible two classes that will be dedicated around a particular course. Now with that said there will be some form of points awarded after each event that will go toward a "Pilot of the Year" or say the "Pilot of the Summer" award. This way pilots that want to be competitive can race for a larger goal and bragging rights but pilots that only wish to race occasionally can do so. With all of that said I would like to in the future run a F1 series at some point for now however the concentration will be on each event and providing the best possible experience for each event.
Race Format
Gone are the multiple heat knock out style racing, now each event will consist of a qualifying session and three races. Qualifying is something that VARO attempted many years ago very unsuccessfully I may add, now with the current timing system qualifying has gotten dramatically easier. Qualifying will take place 15 minutes prior the the scheduled pilots meeting pilots will have an open course and must submit there time to the Race Organizer before the time is up, Simple. Qualifying will then determine the starting order for the 1st Sprint race. The 2nd Sprint race will see the field starting order inverted based on qualifying. Finally the best time between both Sprint Races will determine the Start order for the Feature Race will be considerably longer. I believe this format will give everyone the most "bang for the buck" so to speak allowing pilots to race in all races with the option to sit out a Sprint Race if they so choose.
Aircraft Development
In the past VARO has developed our own racing aircraft primarily due to the the serious lack of aircraft out in the flightsim community. Today there are many options out the for racing aircraft including aircraft for many classes. What does this mean for future VARO aircraft development? For starters all unlimited style aircraft are going to be replaced by aircraft already produced by very talented aircraft designers. T-6 and Jet aircraft will remain pretty much the same however I am looking to replace them as well. All in all the only development the VARO will be doing is for the F1 aircraft and that will be based solely on the interest of pilots to race in an F1 series. Bottom line developing aircraft takes a lot of time and distracts for the over goal of VARO which is to put on great events.
Software Development
As some of you may remember the last time we race I have finished up the Transponder RC 3 which turned out to be a very solid and user friendly program. The program is still in existence will well only get better as I am already begun to work on new features to make the program even better.
Scenery Development
Before we closed the site down the last time I announced plans to expand our courses to Hawaii,Europe and Australia and I intend to continue with those new courses, I am working to create even more with the goal to hold events in many new and interesting places all in the effort to get pilots out of there normal comfort zones and to see all that Flight Sim has to offer.
A New Flight Sim
I am not sure how many of you have upgraded to Flight Simulator X but I can say that I have and really enjoy the simulator greatly. Now that doesn't mean that VARO has abandoned our FS2k2 and FS2k4 pilots. Thanks to the folks at Chocolate Software and their FSHost server all 3 versions of the game can connect to the same server and see each other. Now i am still working out the details and some research may be involved but I cannot see a reason why with the Transponder and FSHost we cannot have all 3 sims racing against each other. The only possible issue we may run into is aircraft but that should not be an issue.
Keeps getting better with Age
VARO was started some seven years ago and yes we have had our ups and downs we even had a bit of a feud going there for a while but in the end it comes down to having fun and doing something that we love to do and for most of us do not have the means to do in real life. Stay posted for more updates to this site as they will be coming as fast as I can get things together. Hopefully everything will be in place to start turning laps in a few weeks I would really love to be on course with our first open practice before Memorial Day here in the states.
Fly Fast Turn Left...and Sometimes Right(only in Oz of course)
Lead Race Organizer
Sryth
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