AI-Powered Flight Recommendation Service for VATSIM

Community
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Introducing Our AI-Powered Flight Recommendation Service for VATSIM

Hello folks,

Spread the word! We’re very excited to introduce our new tool VATSIM AI Dispatcher
https://vatsim-dispatcher.org

Finding the perfect route on VATSIM can feel like solving a puzzle—maps, event pages, bookings, staring at traffic flows, who’s controlling, and more. But don’t worry, our new AI-powered flight recommendation service has your back! With just one click, you’ll get personalized, real-time flight suggestions based on your preferences. Whether you’re in the mood for a popular route, a scenic detour, or something totally off the beaten path, we’ve got you covered. And yes, our AI models learn your preferences automatically—kind of like having a personal dispatcher who actually knows what you want (even before you do :sunglasses:), but without spilling coffee on the job.

How It Works

Using the service is quick and easy:

  1. Sign in: Assign a display name and log in with your Google/Facebook/Microsoft account.
  2. Get Your Recommendations: In seconds, receive a list of curated routes designed just for you.

That’s it! Your next virtual adventure is just a few clicks away. Here is a sneak peak of what info is provided in the recommendations.

Just a couple more things to note:

  • This is a very early beta version we couldn’t wait to share with you! Try it out and let us know what you think—we’d love your feedback.
  • For now (and only temporarily), you can query recommendations for any CID (using a textbox). We’re waiting for VATSIM staff to enable OAuth authentication so we can verify your CID during the process. You can find more details here.
  • We’re already working on a ton of exciting improvements (so many, it’d take another post to list them all), including making our AI models smarter and more accurate with every update.

Feel free to contact us at vatsim.buddy@gmail.com or send me a DM with any questions, feedback, or suggestions (or literally anything else!)

Happy flying and spread the word!
Luis & the team!

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Please try again. I was changing something quickly :slight_smile:

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Nice idea, I like it!

Feature request: The ability to enter ICAO codes for every airport I’ve got a scenery for.
I do not fly to default airports but just bought myself those which passed a quality check and thus I don’t want to get routes to an airport recommended, that I won’t fly to. Just enter my ICAO codes like this …

BIAR CYFB EBBR EDDH EDDK EDDN EDJA EDLP EGAA EGFF EGGP LOWS LOWW LOWL LOWI GCXO ESSA ESSG EGNM EGML LFBO LFPO LGHI LIML LSZH

… and I get routes from and to these airports only.

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This is very good idea! We are working on adding some ability to filter pre-ranking stage and this seems like a very good filter as well! Will work on add it.

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Hello guys!

I hope you had a very nice Christmas.
We are also very excited to share some big updates on our service, which I’ll list below.

  1. We added flags icons to indicate the departure/arrival countries to the front cards.
  2. We now support several pre-ranking filters:
    • You can filter flights by length/duration.
    • You can specify the departure/arrival country (or both)
    • You can specify how much traffic you want at arrival/departure or both.
    • You can specify whether you want controller at departure/arrival or both.
    • You can specify whether you want the arrival/departure airport to be part of an event (or both).
    • You can specify the arrival or departure airport.
    • You can select a preset list of airports to generate flights from (say a list of 20 airports you usually flight between)
  3. Filters are all stored so next time you access they will be preloaded exactly as you left them.
  4. We have added a couple more sources of candidate flights (user past flights and most common flights hourly in the last 30 days).
  5. The display name requirement has been removed as it provides no clear benefit.

Note: Filters are applied during the pre-ranking stage and can significantly reduce the pool of flights reaching the ranking phase, depending on the filter combinations. However, all remaining flights are ranked just like any others.

Hope you enjoy and find these new updates useful. As always don’t hesitate to reach us if you have any comments/questions, etc.

Regards,
Luis
vatsim-dispatcher.org

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Hello folks,

We are very excited to share the following announcements:

  1. We now support login in directly with VATSIM, this way manually entering your CID is not necessary anymore.
  2. We have improved our model significantly (over 20%) and now our predictions are way more accurate. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
  3. We are very excited working on incorporating controlled time predictions so our ranking models boost those flights with future higher ATC coverage. This will try to minimize the chances ATCs disconnect before you take-off/land.

https://vatsim-dispatcher.org/

Best regard,
Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts!

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This is way cool! Thanks. Just to be sure… does it look at historic data to assess the probability of a Controller being present? And does it take into account the time of flight?
For example… I want to know what’s a good bet for a 2 hour flight with ATC tonight when I get home. In the UK especially people don’t seem to book ATC much and have a habit of vanishing mid flight. (I know they have lives to lead, I’m not complaining!)

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This is exactly what is my radar. As you said, sadly I haven’t had a lot of time to put into this and it is just me building this at this point. My job & family consumes more of my time. My immediate next step is to build a notification system that sends you email with suggestions of flights to make in X hours (based on preferences and with controlled time estimations). For example, at 0900z, KLGA-KIAH, predicted controlled time X hours (w/ other cool stats in it)

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It does, but currently we only support ranking flights to do right now (not in the future).

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Hello folks!

I’m super excited to announce our biggest update yet on the website! Let me try to unpack it a little bit.

For months, our main goal has been one: Predict future ATC coverage for any given flight. Sounds trivial? Haha, it’s not! Especially when it’s just you, flying, coding, and life is happening on the side.

Making this happen involved a lot of moving pieces:

:one: Posing it as an ML problem — How do you optimize and predict coverage across hundreds of airports and controllers?
:two: Collecting the right data — It’s not just reading VATSIM endpoints. That data has to be cleaned, transformed, and twisted into something our models can actually understand.
:three: Waiting and collecting enough data — We basically spent 2 months watching the skies… patiently.
:four: Training ML models — Not trivial either. Lots of variations, testing, tweaking, repeat.
:five: Combining ML with our ranking system — And finally presenting it all to you in a way that’s useful (and hopefully fun). This is truly all you see, but behind the scenes there are a lot of moving pieces.

In short, for any given flight, our system can now think ahead about who will be online, who might pop back in, and how to balance your preferred routes with controller coverage.

What’s new in this release

:hourglass_not_done: Control Time Estimation
We predict which controllers could be in charge during your flight—and when. You can now weigh your ranking (affinity) against coverage (who’s likely online) to find that sweet spot between fun and safe handoffs.

:heart: Controller Stamina
Ever wonder if a controller will stick around long enough to see you through your arrival? Now we show you their “staying power” with clear visual indicators and coverage scores.

:ghost: Comeback Odds
Offline controller? No problem. We calculate the probability they’ll return in time for your flight. It’s like having a crystal ball… only slightly more data-driven.

And don’t worry — your trusty recommendations and pre-ranking filters are still working behind the scenes to personalize your flights. For a full detail of features, please visit here or watch below :slight_smile:

Ready to see it in action? vatsim-dispatcher.org

Since we are still in beta, your feedback is invaluable. If you have any issues not seeing these features enabled, please let me know.

What’s coming next?

Our ML models learning to make coffee for you while you fly… okay, not yet. Now seriously:

  • Notification system: Sends you recommendations for flights to do in the future. Fully configurable (what hours you want to fly, etc).
  • Model improvements: Keep improving our models behind the scenes. Our ranker is in pretty good shape but our future crystal ball (new one) needs retraining because it uses ID embeddings, which are highly dependent on new data coming in (it captures habits, patterns, etc. for each ATC position). Enabling this will be a little expensive both technically and infra-wise.

Regards,
Alex