Aegean Seagull Virtual Airline System

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History - Milestones

Here is our history from the first steps along with the milestones in our progress.

We have had enough Virtual Airline experience in a European VA since November 1998 both in the simple pilot and management roles. We dare to say that we have been through all the ups and downs a VA can offer to a hobbyist on both sides of the river. It was a vision of us to create and run a high standard Virtual Airline System that would be based on an elite pilot base supported by serious, experienced and most important dedicated management. So from the early weeks of 2001, we decided to make the step ahead. The name of it would be Aegean Seagull virtual Airline System and it would serve pilots within Greece's border plus the fact that all these flights should done On-Line. Among the reasons why we stay within Greece is the fact that Greece(Hellas) has a wide variety of airports that offer quite a challenge to any Flight simmer that respects him/herself and the fact that Hellenic virtual Air Traffic Control is among the most efficient and friendly ATCs in the whole world. In the future as we become more and more established and mature maybe we will reconsider this policy of ours although Aegean Seagull will participate in selected Fly-Ins in the on-line organizations that support our hobby. One other goal in our ASe design was to diminish the administrative load of the Management  as much as possible. To achieve this we decided to restrict the pilots number to 20 and to pass all applying pilots through a very difficult test. In case they pass it along with the rest of evaluation criteria of ASe, they will never be tested in the future and upon their placement in the Roster, they are automatically qualified to fly any flight they like in our scehdules with any type of our fleet. We believe it is a very effective method to filter our applicants and establish a good brand in the International Virtual Airlines world. 

January 2001

The site gets its original structure and finds its host under the flightsimmers.net hospitality.  It is decided that ASe fleet would comprise of Dornier Do228, ATR42-300 and Boeing 737-700. In due time we judged that Do228 was quite old and that an ATR42-500 could cover the needs of small island airports.

February 2001

We start to build the databases for the Pilot's Lounge. We think that no other VA has such a good support for the flight planning of its pilots. Our flight schedules are complete and cover all the Hellenic airports with 7 major hubs.

March 2001

We search for a good model to repaint. We chose the one by Jorge Oppenheimer and started the repaint of the Boeing 737-700. It was our first attempt but it proved to be quite succesfull. "Island of Skiros" , our flagship, came out of the hangar and started its flight tests. Our infrastructure (mailing list etc) starts to get materialized.

April 2001

The databases are complete along with some appealing graphic applications in our site. We start to take care of the admission tests. Difficult ones but they guaranatee that the successfull pilot is what we want.

May 2001

We chose to repaint the ATR42-300 by IADG. A very nice model with extremely good flight characteristics. The only problem is that IADG suspended the authorizations for VA repaints so we will not be able to distribute our livery on the Internet. Our pilots will have the ultimate luxury of using it ...;)

June 2001

The very first mailing list posting is sent to our pilots. ATR42-500 repaint is complete. "Island of Ros" starts its flight tests.

Saturday July 28th, 2001 Time 22:32 Local

The moment has come and Seagull 516, sentimentally loaded, transmitted :

" Athens Control Seagull 516 at Dionisios Solomos Apron, with information requests IFR clearance to Athens Eleftherios Venizelos"

Seven minutes later he was taking off into the air and followed by most of the "founding" AeS pilots he opened the final beta testing period for Aegean Seagull.

Friday August 3rd, 2001

George Matsaridis ASe514 submits a PIREP that brings his total hours to 10,30 and thus making him the first of our pilots to be ever promoted to the rank of First Officer.

Friday August 17th, 2001

Our site hits-counter reaches 1000 visits.

Sunday September 16th, 2001

Aegean Seagull is the first VA worldwide to receive its own custom made Monitor TV by IVAO. As of Sunday 16/9/2001 05:00 Local time  our IVAO Monitor TV is added to the lower part of our homepage. By MONITOR TV, everyone visiting ASe site can check out if a fellow Seagull pilot flies in IVAO the very moment he/she visits the site without having to utilize WhazzUp or ServInfo utilities. 

Wednesday September 19th, 2001

Stelios Theodoridis ASe339 submits a PIREP that brings Aegean Seagull's total log to just over 100 hrs

Saturday September 22nd, 2001

George Matsaridis  ASe514 submits a PIREP for the Flight #100 in Aegean Seagull's total log. 

Saturday October 27th, 2001 Time 23:00 Local Malta Time

Fotis Dimitropoulos ASe516 lands in Malta Luqa airport (LMML) flying the first international flight of Aegean Seagull vAS. This is also the first international fly-in in which ASe takes part.

Saturday November 3rd, 2001

Thomas Vasiliadis  ASe310 submits a PIREP that brings his total hours to 40,56 and thus making him the first of our pilots to be ever promoted to the rank of Junior Captain.

Saturday December 1st, 2001

Babis Perivolas SX-300 is the first pilot to submit his registration for ASe's first Annual Event "Aegean Seagull Flies To Santa's Home"  

Sunday December 9th, 2001

Operation Chart v1.2 is in effect. Major change is that ASe flies to/from destinations all over Europe. Until the detailed European Schedules are ready, pilots can fly everywhere in Europe under the Charter Flights status.

Saturday December 29th,2001

"Aegean Seagull Flies To Santa's Hometakes place and it is recorded as a success. After some 5 hrs of flight, participating pilots landed in EFRO Rovaniemi Finland, Santa's Home. 

Sunday January 20th, 2002

Aegean Seagull is the first VA worldwide to receive its own custom made WX Display by IVAO. As of Sunday 20/1/2002 17:30 Local time  our IVAO WX Display is added to the lower part of our homepage. By WX Display, everyone visiting ASe site can check out the latest METARs of ten selected stations. Another offer to our pilots and visitors. IVAO's ANA Mike Kara is the creator of this nice feature.

Sunday February 24th, 2002

Fotis Dimitropoulos ASe516 submits a PIREP that brings his total hours to 80,63 and thus making him the first of our pilots to be ever promoted to the rank of Line Captain.

Saturday March 30th, 2002

The brand new Boeing 727-200F Advanced "Island of Limnos" rolled out of our repaint hangar and started its flight tests period. With the completion of this test period  ASe will launch its CARGO operations.

Monday April 15th, 2002

Thomas Vasiliadis ASe310 submits a PIREP that brings the overall logged ASe flight hours to just over 500.

Thursday May 2nd, 2002

ASe's site reaches 5000 hits. It is quite a number if you take into consideration the, by definition, small number of Seagull pilots..

Saturday May 11th, 2002

"Island of Limnos" ASe brand new Boeing 727-200F Advanced was released commencing ASe's  CARGO operations. Operations Chart v1.3 is in effect.

Saturday May 18th, 2002

Stelios Theodoridis ASe339 submits a PIREP that brings his personal logged ASe flight hours to just over 100.

 Saturday May 31st, 2002

Stelios Theodoridis ASe339 submits a PIREP that brings his personal logged ASe flights to just over 100.

Monday November 4th, 2002

Pasxalis Katsiotis ASe287 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook hours just over 1000. New Operations Chart v2.1 is valid introducing four new ranks in Aegean Seagull's hierarchy.

Wednesday November 13th, 2002

Stelios Theodoridis ASe339 takes his promotion to the rank of Chief Captain. Stelios is the first pilot to become Chief Captain in ASe's history.

Thursday December 26th, 2002

Babis Peribolas ASe300 flies the first transatlantic flight in ASe's history, taking off from Boston USA (KBOS) and landing at Athens El. Venizelos (LGAV).

Sunday February 9th, 2003

Nektarios Anastasopoulos ASe069 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights to 1000

Monday February 10th, 2003

We reach 10.000 visits  in our site. 

Saturday March 1st, 2003

Vangelis Dokos ASe330 is accepted in Aegean Seagull vas as the 20th pilot in its Roster. A target set since our operations start some 20 months ago. We will create the vacancies in our Roster by evaluating the demand. 

Wednesday June 25th, 2003

We implement Operations Chart version 3.0 which increases the number of Aegean Seagull pilots to 25. This was due to the increasing demand for a position in our Roster. 

Monday July 21st, 2003

Babis Peribolas ASe300 takes his promotion to the rank of Fleet Captain. Babis is the first pilot to become Fleet Captain in ASe's history.

Monday November 3rd, 2003

Paschalis Katsiotis ASe282 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours  to 2500

Wednesday December 3rd, 2003

Babis Peribolas ASe300 submits a PIREP that makes him the very first pilot in ASe's history to log 200 flights. 

Monday December 15th, 2003

Babis Peribolas ASe300 submits a PIREP that makes him the very first pilot in ASe's history to log 300 flight hours and get his promotion the rank of Senior Captain

Wednesday December 24th, 2003

Vangelis Dokos ASe330 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook hours up to 3000.

Friday December 26th, 2003

Stathis Tsagaratos ASe402 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights up  to 2000.

Wednesday February 11th, 2004

We implement Operations Chart version 3.1 which increases the number of Aegean Seagull pilots to 30. This was due to the increasing demand for a position in our Roster.

Friday April 23rd, 2004

Marco Massarini ASe129 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook hours up to 4000.

Thursday August 19th, 2004

Nikos Gerontoukos ASe137 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights up to 3000.

Friday September 10th, 2004

Tom Haug ASe947 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook hours up to 5000.

Thursday March 10th, 2005

Stathis Tsagaratos ASe402 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook hours up to 6000.

Tuesday May 3rd, 2005

Stathis Tsagaratos ASe402 submits a PIREP that makes him the very first pilot in ASe's history to log 500 flight hours and get his promotion the rank of Senior Chief Captain

Wednesday May 4th, 2005

We implement Operations Chart version 4.0 which increases the number of Aegean Seagull pilots to 40

Monday September 5th, 2005

Our site hit counter reaches 20000 hits.

Tuesday January 10th, 2006

Babis Peribolas ASe300 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours up to 10000.

Tuesday January 31st, 2006

George Maratos ASe268 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights up to 6000.

Tuesday June 7th, 2007

Dimitris Nisiotis ASe171 submits a PIREP that makes him the very first pilot in ASe's history to be promoted to the rank of Senior Fleet Captain

Monday September 17th, 2007

Kyprianos Biris ASe269 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours up to 12000.

Friday October 12th, 2007

Evangelos Vaos ASe267 submits a  PIREP mail that makes him the first pilot in ASe's history to log 900 flight hours.

Wednesday  January 6th, 2010

Evangelos Vaos ASe267 submits a massive PIREP mail that makes him the first pilot in ASe's history to log 1.000 flight hours and thus become the very first pilot in ASe's history to be promoted to the rank of Instructor Captain.

Sunday April 4th, 2010

Makis Tsaparidis ASe299 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours up to 15.000.

Sunday April 11th, 2010

Babis Peribolas ASe300 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights up to 9.000.

Thursday September 9th, 2010

Nikos Fragkias ASe063 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours up to 16.000.

Wednesday October 27th, 2010

We release our South America scheduled flights network. It consists of 862 flights and bring the total ASe scheduled flights network to 10.482.

 Monday March 14th, 2011

Nikos Fragkias ASe063 becomes the very first pilot that has ever completed the South America High Elevation Operations Tour.

Sunday April 17th, 2011

Kyprianos Biris ASe269 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flights up to 10000.

Thursday May 2nd, 2011

Thanasis Chatzikampouris Biris ASe051 submits a PIREP that brings ASe's total logbook flight hours up to 17000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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