First of all, KuMi is - in computer terms - very old. It exists since 2002, and has taken place more than 1100 times since then. It takes place on Wednesday evening (UTC) every week, and has only been cancelled twice during that time. The first time was the 1st anniversary of 9-11, the second time it was after a good friend from our group had been killed in the 2015 Eurowings crash.
Technically, KuMi is a flight simulator group flight, performed as a fly-in to a previously specified airport. The challenge, or goal, is to land exactly at 2200h lcl German time, which is 2000z during daylight savings time, and 2100z for the rest of the year.
The pilot who lands closest to 2200lcl is the "winner" - and has the obligation to select the destination airport for the following week and present it in our forum.
The pilot who lands farthest away from 2200lcl - earlier or later - is the "cook". His obligation is to select a recipe from the region of our destination and post this recipe in the forum. Some of us use these recipes in their own kitchen.
This is why it's called KuMi - "Kulinarischer Mittwoch". This is German and means "culinaric Wednesday".
Luckily, for the cook it is not required to have any idea what he is doing when posting a recipe. Which, of course, does not apply for the pilots. Most if not all of us are quite experienced, some being private or commercial pilots in real life. We know well how to fly, IFR or VFR, and we also know how to organize ourselves when approaching an airport with no ATC present. Well, mostly, at least.
But we always welcome ATC at our destination and often request it before the flight.
Sometimes, at rare occasions, it may happen that we are not as attentive as we probably should be. This is because we are busily chatting on our Discord server during the flight, and one or the other spirited beverage consumed might play a role as well.
Quite often, when ATC has been active, we're invited to come back soon, which puts us into kind of a dilemma. On one hand, we sure would like to, on the other hand we tend to pick destinations where we have never been before. Or at least not for a very long time. Sometimes, however, we select these destinations for one of our regular "normal" group flights. Except for the one at the end of the year - then, we are all flying into Kai Tak.
Common KuMi expressions:
"Next Desti Please" - Notice to the winner not to forget his task (as if he could)
"Hunger" - Reminder for the cook to get his a** into the virtual kitchen
"F5 F5 F5" - Enhanced reminder, when #1 didn't work
