The publisher of AVSIM, Tom Allensworth, operated a Bulletin Board System from 1983 until approximately the fall of 1995.

[5] The initial concept for AVSIM was the provision of articles and capture images of the flight simulation genre, collated into HTML format as a monthly magazine and packaged into a zip file.

[5][6] With the growth of the flight simulation community, the magazine moved into a continuously updated website in April 1997.

[4] Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, explained that the site used two servers to back-up the site's data, but that the hacker deleted the content of both, destroying the ability to use one server to restore the data of the other.

The cost of the recovery of the site was about $25,000 (USD) to pay for new servers and experts to recover the files.

The servers were replaced, the email addresses and forums were recovered on May 26, and the front page and other elements of the site on May 28.

[11] On September 7 AVSIM filed a civil suit in Britain against the person who hacked the organization in May.

To the extent that prudence allow, we will keep you informed of future developments.” As of July 2011 AVSIM had still not updated its users on the situation and it appeared that the matter had been brushed under the carpet given the last few words of the above quote; then, in a retrospective blog post in June 2012,[13] Tom Allensworth, the founder of AVSIM, explained that legal action was ultimately dropped.

[15] The website decided not to have a 2008 convention due to the decaying economy and an anticipated reluctance to travel but has announced a social meeting to take place instead.

Full commercial reviews are covered as news items listed on the website's main page.

Since the founder's passing, all affairs have been managed by a volunteer Board of Directors consisting of Jim Young,[19] Chuck Jodry,[20] and Chase Kreznor.