V-Flyer

Now that Pete's shiny new site is up-and-running, it's got me thinking: why did this site start in the first place? Whose idea was it? Who started it?

I wonder if some - ahem - 'V-Flyer Old Timers' (VFOTs) might share a potted history?

Cheers, all!

NYLON

Ok, potted history. Are you sitting comfortably?

It was back in 2002/2003 when I was a member of FlyerTalk along with a few other of the old timers (Nottingham Nick, Richard Mannion and Bazz spring to mind), where we were very active in the Virgin forum over there. One of the most common questions, due to the pot luck of whether you'd get the V:Port entertainment system, was "Which aircraft will I be on?".

Being a bit of a geek and data monkey, I built a tool that looked at the flight history of the route to tell you what the percentage chance of getting a type of aircraft on any particular route was. This tool lived at the end of an IP address - the site didn't even have a name.

Over time more tools were added, and we finally gave the IP address a domain - virginflyer.com. It was in 2003 - February from memory - which is when we celebrate the "official" birthday of the site.

A forum was added to the site in 2003, although at the time nobody thought it would work since we already had FlyerTalk. The rest, as they say, is history. Apart from the little conversation I had at Virgin Atlantic HQ, when they politely asked for me to stop using the Virgin name in the URL. Hence, v-flyer.

Pete

Very interesting, thanks Pete! I think you should put your write-up in a little corner of the site somewhere. Maybe under FAQ, or a submenu under Home.

Pete is being very modest here.

There was also a book - a proper printed one - that he and Richard wrote - The V-Book: The Complete Guide to Flying with Virgin Atlantic.

Pete also has a wiki page about him!

tontybear wrote:There was also a book - a proper printed one - that he and Richard wrote - The V-Book: The Complete Guide to Flying with Virgin Atlantic.

A rare edition indeed...:

I must have been one of the early followers

wow coool.
I agree with NYLON, you should put this somewhere on the site.
Interesting though that Virgin although not happy with the original name didnt try to shut it down.

tontybear wrote:Pete is being very modest here.

There was also a book - a proper printed one - that he and Richard wrote - The V-Book: The Complete Guide to Flying with Virgin Atlantic.

Pete also has a wiki page about him!

I just read the wiki page... Your Spectrum was my favourite Sinclair magazine. I even had a program published in it once. I think I got £100 which was a huge sum for me back then.