I'm sorry to announce that I've just learned that Mr. Tom Allensworth has passed away from a terminal illness earlier this morning around 5:30 AM. I was notified by his sister who is a family member (aunt by marriage) of mine. I'm sure that there will be more information forthcoming as folks are made aware, but please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers. Her message to me was "Tom passed this morning about 5:30a. Thanks for your prayers and kind words. AVSIM meant a lot to him and I'm sure he was aware of the support he from the AVSIM community". 

Hopefully a moderator or someone else at the helm will take this message and post it appropriately.

Edit- Here's a link to his announcement of the situation a few weeks ago for those that may have not been expecting his passing.

http://forum.avsim.net/page/index.html/_/pri-news/words-i-need-to-share-with-our-community-r2864

Also, Thank you to those who have worked diligently to keep operations on-going. 

I recently got back into sims with MSFS 2020 and today i decided to message Tom to discuss all the things we wanted to see with graphics and systems simulation have taken a huge step up.   I didn't realize that he had passed on.   

He was definitely a big player in this hobby,  and will be missed. 

Today, for some reason, I decided to send the hiring authority for this new job a link to the events of 2009 page still found here on AVSIM. Tom and Mrs. A were like a 3rd set of parents for me. (I am lucky enough to have parents and step parents that ALL get along, thus 3rd.) Even so much as when I developed a HUGE blister between my toes in San Diego at the SimCon there, Mrs. A went into nurse mode and assisted me before our flight back to DCA. 🙂 

Tom and I didn't always see eye to eye, we butted heads, we argued, we shouted. But I never stopped enjoying what I did. Even my day job counter-parts will tell you that I blurt out at times, but in the long run I get it done and enjoy the work. But deep down Tom was a mentor for me. Made me smile, made me laugh way more then we ever argued. One night in a bar in the "unofficial" HQ hotel for AVSIM, after my work at the NOC, we met. Mid conversation Tom looks at me, says, "John, your problem is you don't talk enough about YOURSELF." I don't think I have ever had a larger compliment given to me. 

You see, my adage of HOW I.T. should be done, is if we are doing our jobs right, none of you should know we are even there. It should just work. We didn't always hit that goal, but we sure as heck tried. Which I guess is why I am writing this today. I am still very proud of what we did that day and for years with AVSIM. Maybe Tom was in my mind from above today, and for whatever reason I chose to send the hack-blurb about how we helped recover this amazing site. There was so much going on BEHIND the scenes, some of which I am not now and was not then aware of. The flight sim community owes a tremendous thank you to Tom. I hope we never forget that. I know I won't. 

And if I land this job, I am sure Tom will be smiling, and I will silently thank him for helping me get to here. So, Tom, Mrs. A, Bob K and others, thank you. I'll never forget the fun, work, sweat, tears that we all had together. 🙂 

We miss you Tom.

Sending healing vibes to all, and best wishes to Y'ALL to make the torch that Tom lit, burn even brighter.

Rest in Peace Tom

Chas

May our friend rest in peace.

 Thank you everyone who participated. the flight was great, and we had many members come and go.

Screens by RyanJZ.

 
With thanks to Trucker17 and msFlights.net, AVSIM is pleased to announce the official details for the 2nd Annual Tom Allensworth Memorial Flight.
 
Who:  All who wish to attend.
 
What:  A gathering of friends from around the world to honor Tom Allensworth -- the founder of AVSIM -- who loved the community very much.  Knowing Tom, and his selfless nature, he wouldn't want us to grieve or be sad that he isn't here with us, but rather, he would want us to do something in his name that brings joy to us for many years to come.  What better way than flying that brings us all together in his memory.  The AVSIM Staff and Allensworth family thank Trucker17 for starting this tradition.
 
Server:  SimLink - Details on how to connect can be found by clicking here.  We will be using SimLink software so that all platforms of FSX can fly together (i.e. Classic, P3D, Steam).
 
Departing: April 9th @ 7pm UTC (3:00 PM EDT)

Flight Plan: KAVL>KTRI>KROA>KCHO (*PLN file available here)
 
Communications: We will be using a dedicated room on msFlights.net TeamSpeak server. Server address: ts3.msflights.net. In the interest of cross-community relations we would recommend placing your main community in your Name (eg. [MSF]Novawing24, [AVSIM]trucker17).
 
The aircraft:

• General Aviation
• WWII era fighters and bombers
• Any aircraft that can safely take off and land at these airports
• Additionally there was a discussion around a repaint tribute to the work Tom did in the Navy, so a repaint of the default Super King Air 350 has been created and released and is available on the AVSIM library.  (Thanks to Tristan "Novawing24" Ayton)

Memorial Video: A memorial video will be produced using the screenshots and videos taken by community members.  We will then provide this memorial video to the Allensworth family and share with the community our gathering.  We appreciate any media you can provide for this effort.  Links to videos (i.e. YouTube) or screenshots can be shared directly in this thread to keep it all in one place.

Flyby's and precision flights are welcome.
 
If you need to set your system up with the systems we will be using before the flight - please set it up and test it before the flight.  We want everyone to have an enjoyable flight.


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We need a few things to make the flight memorable:  video, the main thing, a TeamSpeak connection for communications, and someone to take screenshots of everyone in the flight from the start to the end.  Most importantly, we need a coordinator to oversee the completion of these processes. 

So here is where you can suggest a route.  The final destination will be his home airport, Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO) in CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.  Also, here is where you can suggest a time and date for the flight.  Tom Allensworth passed on April 4th.   So I would like a date near this day for the flight.  Last year we also had a variety of aircraft.   Some were high performance WWII aircraft.  We will have a variety of aircraft that can fly again.  Only thing I would like to see is that any aircraft planning to fly into the KCHO airport be able to land safely.

As suggestions are made we will take all of them into consideration and post a list of the final 3 airports which you the pilots will choose.

The destination airport will be: The Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO) in CHARLOTTESVILLE VA. Coordinates: 38° 8′ 19.1″ N, 78° 27′ 10.3″ W

Flight duration will depend on the suggestions given for starting points.  Landings will be anytime after you arrive at CHO.   So feel free to do flyby's,  but please do not get in the way of aircraft landing or taking off.

The date and time of the flight will also be one of the suggested date and times.  My suggestions are:

•  Oshkosh - Wittman Regional Airport
•  11AM EST on April 9th, 2016

Join in the planning and conversation by leaving a message in the Forum Topic.

 And everyone who worked behind the scenes for the video......

 Tom was a good friend to many of us here at AVSIM and in the flight sim community in general.....He was an awesome man to converse with, and was full of insight into most anything that was related to the sim and community.....

 Tom will be missed, and in a lot of ways the sim community will not be the same without him.......

 Craig.....

 The flight will start at richmond muni, and end at his hometown airport......

 We have decided that the flight will be held on Saturday may 2nd......The time will be 9AM Pacific, 10AM mountain, 11Am Central, 12 Eastern time......

 The flight will be flown on Teamspeak,

 If anyone here has video experience please contact me, so we can put together a video of the flight for the AVSIM community.

 Craig.

The flight is on.

 Below you will find the connections needed for online flight.....The airport link to get the airport.....and the time of the flight......

             Airport for flight.
http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=+BETA+KCHO&CatID=root&Go=Search

             Cords for his home....
Here are the cords for his home.

LAT/LON of Toms home, it should be:        

<ATCWaypoint id="AVSIM">
            <ATCWaypointType>User</ATCWaypointType>
            <WorldPosition>N38° 6' 47.52",W78° 26' 28.31",+000499.00</WorldPosition>
            <Descr>Tom Allensworth</Descr>

         

Teamspeak 3 Server:

IP: 104.131.10.215

Password: clouds

For  FSHost.....For anyone needing this connection get it here.....http://www.chocolatesoftware.com/fshost/?fshostclient.html

 Connection for FSHost: 72.233.79.242

For pilots using twitch channel: and VATSIM Contact  bthiago  For info.

twitch channel: "flightsimfsx" and Vatsim

 The flight time is 0900 AM Pacific time, so please figure your time zone for flight.......

 Pilots should start showing up at around 0830 AM....Flights will start departing at 0900 AM Pacific time

 Be sure to check your connections for the flight......

 This is not a race, so you can take your time on the flight......

 For anyone wishing to do the missing man, pilots can get together and discuss it......

 If he dont mind the person heading up the missing man will be PhantomTweak.

 At the moment the signed up pilots are.

 Name:                                       trucker17

 Aircraft:                                    (A2A) P51-D ( Berlin Express)

Name:    Pat "PhantomTweak" Bernard

Aircraft:  Milton Shupe's Spartan 7W, Black Five

Name: Matthew Kraemer (i_am_canadian737)

Aircraft: A2A C172 C-GQCU (VFR conditions permitting)

Name : Sidhant Vaidya

Aircraft : A2A Cessna 182 VT-BOA

Name Greg Busby

Aircraft Alabeo Saratoga II TC N84969

Name: Alan Nakamura (ViperPilot)

A/C: Rutan M-202 Boomerang

Name: Benjamin Weaver

Aircraft: A2A C172 N521BW

 Lets please leave this thread for that......

 If you have a service to offer to the flight, please do so at the TOM ALLENSWORTH MEMORIAL FLIGHT THREAD.

 At current we have over 500 openings......so if you can make the flight sign in here, so we can plan for everyone.......

 Thanks everyone.....

 Here is what we would like to know........Example

 Name:                                       trucker17

 Aircraft:                                    (A2A) P51-D ( Berlin Express)

 ALL AIRCRAFT IS GOOD.........

 Trucker17

 (A2A) P51D (Berlin Express)

1. 2005 San Diego, with Bob Kirkland, Matt Johnson, Tom, and staff from Microsoft.

2. 2005 San Diego AVSIM partial staff, to include all of the above, Tom's Wife, and myself.

3. Again staff photo, this one was I believe one of the years in DC.

We were all taken by surprise by Tom's sudden death. Personally, I never got to say “thank you." There are many volunteers, friends, and community members who worked hard with Tom through the years to advance a project we know as AVSIM Online. Those same individuals must feel much like myself, possessing a very great debt of gratitude. In the two weeks since he passed away, thousands of condolence notices have come in from the four corners of the world—except China of course (more on that later). Looking at the condolences expressed by the community was more than touching, in fact it was revealing. Winston Churchill had a way with words and it was one of his quotes that came to mind as I thought about Tom Allensworth’s contributions,“Never was so much owed by so many to so few."

It is only in retrospect that one comes to understand much of what we have come to know as the hobby of flight simulation was first imagined and developed by Tom. Since AVSIM's inception over 15 years ago, a website and an entire industry came of age. This growth was mostly through interaction between the end user and the creative souls who honed their skills by communicating and interacting through the various forums on how to develop and improve the products we enjoy today. Very few are the professional grade developers who did not first start by designing freeware. These same professionals banded together into groups and companies and formed the flight simulation industry, as we know it today.

Who was this founding father of simulation? The Tom I knew was not a Saint, nor would Tom have anyone believe thus. Tom could be counted on to exacerbate any clash of wills. What drove Tom’s passion for AVSIM and the hobby we love? I never understood Tom's motivations until he retired—AVSIM was his hobby. There was seemingly nothing he liked to play with more than AVSIM. Many of us will remember when the website was renovated and there was a period of a couple of years beginning in 2011, where we were constantly treated to new elements, formats and artwork. Staff and community members in both public and private often discussed the look and feel of AVSIM. Some ideas worked out wonderfully, although they did take some time to find their final form. However, other ideas were not meant to be. Does anybody remember the new library that was to be launched within the forum environment? Thought not. However, taken as a whole, the training and open communication necessary for implementation of this new library and all the other ideas brought Tom and the AVSIM Staff closer together.

We all have our bugbears; Tom’s was spam. He took spamming personally. In retrospect, our Board of Director's email traffic was often buzzing about attacks from various countries—on a few occasions the topics were about individuals who had a bone to pick with AVSIM. Most annoying to Tom was when multiple accounts were being used to riddle the forums with personal drama and private messages with taunts and challenges to do something about it. To never see a battle won by the miscreants, Tom needed to sift through the IP addresses of all new members. As a result of the actions of a few bad sticks, we now have wait periods and other software to keep AVSIM spam free. However, for years that was a mission, often thankless. Until last week the entire country of China could not sign in because it was from China the majority of spam attacks were delivered upon AVSIM .

Where was the community going before Tom's premature departure is a question being asked now that he isn't here any longer to guide us. AVSIM's intention was to make room for all of the platforms for flight simulation and promote their releases and practices. Each simulator is created by man and thus equally flawed. It's our mission as a community to find the issues, offer the solutions, provide a place where dialog can broach distances in an instant and provide a place where ideas can flourish in common cause. It's a noble endeavor and required years of effort to achieve what Tom accomplished by creating AVSIM.

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning," –Winston Churchill

It's up to us now; Tom was AVSIM in more ways than we can appreciate. One truly discovers the depth of Tom's commitment by seeing and knowing AVSIM for what we have done, who we are, and where we as the community are going. Keeping AVSIM going will take a community. It is our earnest hope his legacy can continue. It isn't going to be easy and we are counting on the membership to be more involved than ever.

In closing and maintaining the tradition of a wake, it would be appreciated if the members would consider posting an anecdote or reminiscence that illuminates the man himself. Tom left a good many emails and even more memories, he left no one indifferent to himself or his hobby, AVSIM.

C. Jodry
Managing Editor
Avsim.com

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Just a thought....

I think it would be nice to have Tom's photo on the top right of the front page, maybe in one of the add spots... Click on Tom's image and it would open to a history of Tom and AVSIM. A lasting tribute to a man who dedicated many, MANY years to Flight Simulation.

RIP Tom, my condolences to the family... You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Michael Swannick

http://www.dailyprogress.com/obituaries/allensworth-thomas-tom-verne/article_82c484da-f381-523f-a831-e34ebac3bb80.html