The Flightsim community’s annual fundraising event, WorldFlight 2024, is scheduled to begin this weekend with over a dozen teams flying around the world, 24 hours a day, over the coming seven days straight. For this year’s event, teams will depart Sydney, Australia’s Kingsford Smith Airport (YSSY) at 2100Z on Saturday, 2nd November, and head west on their globetrotting journey. For the next seven days, they will cover nearly 40,000 nm (74,000 km) and visit 41 airports, with dedicated online air traffic control provided using the VATSIM network.
During the event, each team raises money for their chosen charity, and since 1999, over $1 million USD has been raised for charities worldwide. This year’s charities selected by the teams include the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service, the UK’s Lullaby Trust, Scottish Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA), Great Western Air Ambulance Charity, New Zeland’s Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter, and the USA’s Corporate Angel Network, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, and FISH Inc of Williamsburg, Virginia. To learn more or to donate, visit the team page linked to from the WorldFlight Official Team Listing.
For WorldFlight 2024, teams from around the world will use full-sized simulators representing the Boeing 777, 747, and 737, as well as the Airbus A330 and A320. Each simulator represents a sizable investment in time and money and can be based on real aircraft cockpits as well as homemade and commercially available cockpits. Platforms are developed around X-Plane, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Prepar3D, and Aerowinx’s Precision Simulator.
Last year, we were invited to tag along with the CaliCrew, one of the teams participating in WorldFlight, to see how they put their actual Boeing 737NG cockpit-turned-simulator through its paces during the event’s grueling week-long, 24-hour-a-day schedule. You can watch the video recap below and be sure to check out the companion article.
Throughout the event, teams will be live-streaming their flights on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook so you can easily follow along. Members of the VATSIM network are encouraged to join in and fly alongside the WorldFlight group. WorldFlight’s Operations Center links to each sector’s SimBrief briefing package as well as the suggested route for pilots to fly and over 50 VATSIM controllers will be involved from the ATC side.
