Revealing our New WINGS Program

[Evan Reiter]

We're excited to share a brand new Wings Over New England (WINGS) program with the BVA community!

 

(For those who haven't participated before, WINGS is BVA's free pilot training program, designed to teach the safe operation of virtual aircraft within the online ATC environment that VATSIM provides. You can learn more about how to get involved here.)

 

Over the past several months, we've been working with airline pilots, CFIs, and experienced VATSIM pilots to review and update each flight in the program. In some cases, we made only editorial changes like adding headers, updating language, and fixing links. In other cases, we've moved content, introduced new concepts, and removed material so the program better reflects modern equipment navigation and techniques while removing dependencies on outdated approaches.

 

There's also an all-new IFR 17 that introduces some of the lesser-known airliner operations elements to the WINGS program, including maintenance test flights, CAT II/III approaches, sidestep procedures, and more. 

 

Over the next few weeks, we'll look forward to hearing your feedback, input, and suggestions regarding these new flights. From there, we'll plan a bigger launch event in the coming weeks. At that time, we also anticipate that VATSIM will recognize WINGS completion with network-wide Achievement Badges alongside those we offer in our own TeamSpeak and Discord. 

 

Check out the new program here.

 

Have you already started the WINGS program?

The new Wings Over New England program went live on July 6, 2026. If you were in the process of flying the WINGS program at the time, please see below for our recommendations:  

• All previous WINGS ratings have been retained. If you wish to re-do one or more flights, you're welcome to do so. 
• If you are a WINGS graduate, we invite you to fly the new WINGS IFR 17. This new flight introduces concepts you won't have seen in the previous edition of the program. 
• If you're partway through the VFR portion of the WINGS program, continue on. Changes made to the VFR portion are mostly editorial in nature.
• If you're partway through the IFR portion of the WINGS program, we recommend re-starting at WINGS IFR 1, as the procedures and structure of the flights have changed. You'll get the most by completing the flights in order, starting with IFR 1.