State of the Club - 2026
Hello, folks! It’s been another great year for The Pilot Club. As we said goodbye to 2025 and welcomed in 2026, I wanted to provide an update on the State of the Club.
I’d like to thank all Members who contributed their time and energy to TPC. You make it a great place for aviation and flightsim enthusiasts to thrive!
In 2025, TPC became a non-profit corporation, which will allow us to grow the organization, to provide great features to the Members, and to pave the way for even more exciting developments, like our IRL Part 61 Ground School!
In April we celebrated TPC’s fourth birthday on Earth. As we continue to grow, our primary mission remains the same: to provide a supportive and friendly environment for aviation and flightsim enthusiasts to thrive. The Pilot Club is all about Teamwork, Passion, and Community. These are our pillars, which guide us in everything we do in the Club. Because our mission resonates with so many people in the flightsim community, we continue to see substantial growth.
In September 2025, we hit a major milestone: 6000 Members.
It’s great to see more folks join the Club! I’m also excited to report that we continue to grow our ATC and IRL Pilots base, and having that integrated environment brings a lot of value to the Club! Additionally, TPC continues to operate as an official VATSIM partner and ATO, which brings the VATSIM stamp of approval, publicity, and better coordination with the Network.
EVENTS / ACTIVITIES
In 2025, many Members contributed to the Community by being engaged in various activities on TPC Discord server.
Here are our TOP 10 Pilots at the end of 2025:
Dylan | TPC1496 | DELA
Stephen | TPC341 - N341SW | ZID
Stuart | TPC73 | C-FCMC
Dylan | TPC802 | KPIT
Oren | TPC171 | FERL
Brad | TPC178
Chris | TPC215 | VNCA
Rob Andrews | TPC563 | RIPM
Lena | TPC1407 | MGAC
Andrew S | TPC51 N51AY RABBIT3
As we continue to bring great variety of activities that Members can do in the Club, there’s something to do for every Member. In 2025, the Club conducted 178 scheduled group flights/events. It is a bit less than last year, mainly due the reduction of the frequency of weekly events mid-year due to lack of staff bandwidth. We look forward to resuming our full schedule later this year.
In 2025, we conducted several TOWNHALLS. It’s a great way for Members to connect with the Staff and hear about Club’s plans in development. We also celebrated several TPC Company Perks Giveaway Winners and our Regular Club Giveaway Winners during these Townhalls. Throughout the year we have given away aircraft, scenery, gift cards, flightsim hardware, and Club merch. This is our way of saying thank you for flying with TPC.
We had a chance to conduct couple of TRIVIA NIGHTS designed to check Members’ aviation knowledge and award winners with cool prizes! Thank you to Andrew | TPC51 and Stuart | TPC73 for hosting these events!
We’ve continued to hold our monthly SCREENSHOT CONTESTS. It’s a great way for TPC Members to share their epic flightsim pics with the community. Thank you to all who participated and congratulations to the winners! We hope you join one of these engaging events in 2026.
One of the neat little features we have in the TPC Discord server is our DAILY AVIATION QUIZ. The quiz has over 500 questions and growing. It’s a great feature to test your aviation knowledge!
TPC Quarterly LONG HAUL missions curated by Jan | TPC280 continue to be popular with the long haul jockeys, and offer another activity for Members to try.
Our EXPLORER MISSIONS continue to providie opportunities to explore new places and earn TPC Points. In 2025 we offered the following missions:
Most Dangerous Airports in the U.S.
Most Turbulent Routes
Idaho Backcountry Adventure
Japan
Arizona Adventures
The Great Lakes - Hidden Gems
Landing Challenge, Part 2
Pacific Northwest
Colombia Coffee Country Courier
We continue to strengthen the relationships with our Partners. TPC Members are offered exclusive discounts via PARTNERS DISCOUNTS PROGRAM. Check it out!
In June, The Pilot Club participated in FSExpo 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island, which was an amazing experience. Definitely check out the blog post for the highlights. TPC will have a booth at this year’s FSExpo as well! We hope to see you in Minneapolis, 12-14 June 2026.
2025 has been a great year for our Training Program, led by Elliot | TPC24. Big shout out to our Instructors and Flight School management!
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Student growth. The program grew from 3,800 Students at the beginning of 2025, to over 5,300 flight school participants currently.
Training Sessions. 425 training sessions were conducted this year
Course development. In April we launched our P3 Instrument Rating Course and are in development of our new ATPL (P4) curriculum.
Partnerships. TPC has partnered with Plane English (ARsim) with a goal to improve Pilot knowledge and to assist in the Pilot training mission.
Training Staff. Our staff has significantly grown since the start of 2025. Currently, we have 14 active Instructors.
Mentorship Program. In 2025 we launched our Mentorship Program, designed to connect aspiring aviators with seasoned flightsim and aviation enthusiasts, this community-driven program provides personalized, one-on-one mentorship to support your flightsim and aviation journey. Like all our features, this program is FREE to all TPC Members.
WHAT’S AHEAD in 2026?
IRL Part 61 Ground School. TPC is expanding operations into the IRL flight training, and currently developing an FAA Part 61 Ground School (not affiliated with VATSIM), that will allow students to get an FAA written exam endorsement at the end of the course. This course will be FREE and expected to launch later this year.
New initiatives:
The Pilot Club has partnered with VATUSA to develop Pilot masterclasses aimed towards crucial Pilot knowledge topics.
Short-form animated instructional content to quickly explain key aviation concepts.
Case studies to understand aviation risk management and safety topics.
The Training Team is always seeking active Instructors; check out our vacancy page to apply!
Our in-house Virtual Airline - TPC Charters has been thriving under the great leadership by CEO James | TPC36 and the management team there. Here are a few highlights from 2025:
86 Charters pilots flew over 6,900 hours.
19 Charters pilots made 38 Coast to Coast crossings.
10 Charters pilots received the Top Gun award in 2025 with 2 pilots receiving the award twice.
Pilot pay was increased to 30% of the total job payout.
TPC Points for Top Gun and Coast 2 Coast awards were increased to 5,000.
CAREER MODE +
Here are the number of pilots in each of the 21 possible type rankings.
EVENTS
TPC Charters Airline continues innovation by engaging Pilots in quarterly events. During these month-long events, Pilots receive TPC Points for each event airport visited and for completing full mission sets.
Spring Event: BBQ Bounty. In March we headed to the Loan Star State to pick up some BBQ. GA aircraft searched Texas for the best BBQ while our airliners and business jets were sampling from multiple states known for their BBQ.
Summer Event: Ring of Fire. June’s event brought us to Southeast Asia. Based out of Japan, our GA aircraft traveled around Japan and neighboring islands searching for the best volcanic views, while our airliners and business jets flew in and out of Japan
Fall Event: Land ‘O Lakes. For this event, held in September, we focused on Minnesota. Our GA pilots flew around the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, while our airliners flew out of Minneapolis (KMSP) for scenic trips around the great lake region.
Winter Event: Seabase Soiree. In December we visited the Pacific northwest for some GA float plane challenges as our airliners and business jets searched for the most economical route through the crisscrossing FBO connections on offer.
NEW INITIATIVES
Career Mode +. We launched Career Mode +, which awards Charters pilots for their flight time in different aircraft types. Once a pilot reaches 50 hours in a given type they receive the rank Second Officer for that aircraft type and 2,500 TPC points. At 100 hours it’s First Officer and 4,000 TPC points, then finally at 200 hours they receive the rank of Captain and 6,000 TPC points.
New Business Jet Network. A new type of FBO Network was created specifically for Bizjets. This network currently includes CYAV, KBFI, KCOS, KEWR, KFLL, KHOU, KMDW, KONT, KPDK, MGGT, MMMX, and TXKF. See the Charters section of the Flight Crew Portal (on TPC website) or the TPC Charters FBO List pinned in charters-fbo-info Discord channel for more information.
Long Haul Network Update. FBOs were added in Paris (LFPG), Tokyo (RJTT), Sydney (YSSY), and Amsterdam (EHAM).
Coast 2 Coast Europe route added. Breaking out of North America, we now have a Coast 2 Coast route offering in Europe running between Belfast City, Ireland (EGAC) and Nummela, Finland (EFNU). This adds to existing Coast 2 Coast routes across the southern US, the northern US, and Canada.
Track your Career Mode + Hours. The TPC development team added a great new feature to the Flight Crew Portal. If you include your OnAir company code in your Flight Crew Portal profile, you can track your hours by aircraft type in the “Charters” section of the Flight Crew Portal. These figures are updated once per day (not live). While there you can also see our FBO Sector Map and Sim Brief Links.
2026 Start of Year Changes. On 1 January 2026, Pilots who completed all six North American Coast 2 Coast crossings will have their completions reset allowing them to do any they like again and receive TPC Points for doing them. Also starting 1 January 2026, all Charters Captains will receive a bonus of 2,000 TPC Points each time they cross the next 100-hour mark.
If you are looking for a small airline feel, with strong management support, where the Pilots are treated the right way - look no further than TPC Charters Airline! No wonder why top Pilots fly for Charters! Join now!
Our Tech Team led by Eric | TPC76 has been making solid moves behind the scenes, making sure our day-to-day server operations run smoothly.
PROJECTS
TPC Flight Crew Portal (FCP) provides Members with a personalized profile site, plus many cool features, like live operations map, callsign assignment database, and more. Since launching in 2024, the team has been making incremental infrastructure improvements to the FCP.
On the Discord side, TPC Dev Team continues innovation by bringing custom bot commands tailored for flightsim and aviation. These features greatly enhance the Club environment.
CURRENT FOCUS
The team is getting close to starting a closed beta on Discord Bot v.3 which will bring brings faster speeds and more reliability.
The Flight Crew Portal is getting a much needed addition which brings training records for Flight School participants.
The team is currently re-working the flight log system to run independently from the Flight Crew Portal, which will allow better reporting as well as expanded features in the future.
If you are looking to help out the club in a meaningful way, and have technical experience, check out Developer vacancies to discuss open positions on the Tech Team!
Our Staff has been absolutely amazing leading the Club! From me personally - thank you for what you do! I am proud to be a part of this organization because of amazing people leading the Club. If any Members would like to take a more active role in Club operations, please take a look at our Staff Vacancies page. We are always looking for new Members to lead the fastest growing flightsim community!
Last, but not least, I’d like to thank our donors and supporters. Without you the Club would not be what it is today. Your tax-deductible monetary contribution will help fund our operations, bringing a great aviation and flightsim community experience to all Members.
I want to thank you all for being here and for reading this long post ;) Together, we will continue to make this Club a great place for aviation and flightsim enthusiasts to thrive. The future of the Club looks bright!
