The new flight plan form on myVATSIM is now available as a BETA.
We invite all pilots to test the new features, and post any issues and on this forum post.
To access the new form, you can use this link.
If you use an external tool for flight planning (eg Simbrief, Virtual Airline System, etc) that allows you to prefile on myVATSIM, you can use the link available at the top of the old form - this will move all the information appropriately.
For third party developers: The new form is backwards compatible with the old one, so all URL parameters sent over to the old form will work seamlessly with the new version. Please do not change the URL on your systems to point to the new form. Once the BETA is over, the new form will be moved to the current URL (https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/flightplan). No change is needed from third party developers at this time.
Some of the new features include:
Save flight plans that you plan to use in the future (limited to 48 hours for now)
Load flight plans that you previously filed on the network
Improved parsing of the ICAO FPL format, handling some additional use cases
Reordering and resizing some of the fields to better match the ICAO Flight Plan form.
Dropped the option to use FAA equipment codes. Users should use ICAO Equipment codes and transponder
Known issues:
Saving flight plans using the new form may cause the old flight plan form to alert that a flight plan has been found - this is expected
Filing a flight plan using the old form may overwrite a flight plan that was saved using the new form - this is expected
Not all fields are properly validated on the new form - Additional validation will be implemented during the beta.
After clicking “File flight plan”, it may take some time to receive the feedback that the flight plan was filed on the network, or that an error ocurred - we will be monitoring this performance and adjusting as needed.
If you are unsure on how to fill in some of the information, especially regarding Equipment and Transponder/Surveillance codes, this PDF provides a brief description for each field. This website also contains some additional information
A guided “Tour” will be made available directly on the new form on myVATSIM for new users in the near future.
Some additional features and fixes will be added during the BETA. We will keep everyone updated on this forum post.
At the moment it has to be done via the RMK/-field (afaik?), which results in incorrect information, RMK/STAYINFO1/.
Also I do not really see the point in having as many of the items in field 18 listed separately as they are att the moment, who is gonna file DAT, COM, SUR or ORGN manually? The people nerdy/well informed enough should have the option to do it via the ”free” field as described below. Most people do it via SimBrief anyways and don’t even know what half of the information means
Pilots should be given the option to fill in other/custom items that are not preceded by RMK/, for example in the cases described above.
Regarding the problem previously described with numbers of characters for ATYP, type codes with two (maybe some with only one also exist?) must also be accepted, P8 is the first one that comes to mind!
Saving different aircraft would be more useful than saving flight plans, so that you can quickly load type code, equipment etc…, at the moment this is not possible as you need a complete flight plan to be able to save it using the “save flight plan” function.
This is planned, but will likely happen after the Beta is over. The reason is, this will require database changes, and I wanted to avoid it since it could affect the old form, breaking the ability for pilots to file flight plans on the network.
Pretty much the same thing here. I plan on reducing the amount of required fields in order to save a flight plan, but right now that could break the old flight plan form.
As for saving/loading aircraft, it’s on my list of requested features, I just don’t have a specific timeline for it yet
In addition to that: I can see the risk here that pilots just do a flight plan once, file that through the form, and then simply load and file that specific plan whenever they fly that route. This can result in pilots filing outdated/invalid routes. Is there any functionality right now (or planned to be implemented) to notify pilots if the last time they saved a given flight plan was during the previous AIRAC and that they should check if the route is still current and valid?
In that regard I also wonder how many pilots actually need to save their flight plans. Up until now, it didn’t seem like there was any necessity for that. Most people will simply use SimBrief (or Little Navmap) and create their flight plan anew every time anyway, I presume. A way to save an airframe is certainly important for VFR pilots and pilots who don’t use SimBrief for their flight planning, but the exact route, alternates, ETEs, etc. should be planned/calculated anew for every single flight in any case.
Saved flight plans expire 2 hours after their Off Block Time (DOF+OBT to be exact). I should probably add a message somewhere on the system to explain this. There’s currently no plan to alert pilots on AIRAC changes, but I’ll note that down and see if that’s something we can add in the future.
Saving flight plans is based on two requests that we’ve got: The ability to file flight plans in advance - can happen up to 5 days ahead depending on the country from what I got - and some users that like to plan a few consecutive flights ahead of time, and used to save them as files in order to import on vPilot.
This feature was created to mostly cover those use cases/requests. I’ve set to 48 hours initially so we can see how it’s used, and we can adjust it from there as necessary.
When I press the File or Save buttons, I notice the “loading” graphic for a moment, and then no feedback at all that my plan has been filed or saved. It also does not show up in Filed History, or Saved Plans, and I do not get an AUTOATC notification when connecting in an uncontrolled area. I don’t think the filing is going through at all for some reason. Using Firefox browser.
Remove the mandatory “*” by Endurance (it’s NOT in real-life ATC flightplans)
Why is “Transponder” become necessary (* = mandatory) ? No real need for that is there?
If you do not have a transponder there is no use on flying on VATSIM
OPR/ is still restricted to 3 characters , while in real-life it’s a open field.
I assume you mean “remove it from FSD”? That’s a bit outside my responsability, but I can move that up the chain
I’ll have a closer look at our logs and see if anything shows up
I probably mentioned this on another thread: FSD requires this, so at least for now, we have to keep it mandatory.
It is mandatory on the ICAO format
True, probably does not apply to most cases on VATSIM, but the CoC does allow simulation of aircraft without one in special cases.
You can use N for “No Surveillance Equipment” (reference)
I probably forgot to disable the limit somewhere. I’ll fix it later today
In addition to what Marcelo and Alistair have said: this field is not a yes or no question, it asks precisely what type of surveillance equipment (the field is not only for transponder capabilities, but also to indicate ADS-B/ADS-C equipment) you have which is important to know in order to figure out which forms of identification controllers can use, etc. and many controller packs also display aircraft with different surveillance equipment differently according to how they are displayed in real life. Further, some places require certain surveillance equipment for you to be allowed in (just think of the ADS-B mandatory zones around the biggest US airports, for instance).
That would be the technical description the use case would be e.g. after you pre-filed an FPL, you need to abandon your schedule due to real world commitments and would like to retract the pre-filed FPL. This is to avoid showing up as pre-filed in some flight lists.
Maybe a suggestion: put in the default value which is appropriate for 99% of the flightsim VATSIM flights and have a pull down menu to change it in a different value?
Suggestion, when loading a saved flightplan change the date of the flightplan to the current date? So the error of a date in the past is not needed in the case.
Also when you select a new correct date, the errors message does not go away, which seems not logic to me?
the use case would be e.g. after you pre-filed an FPL, you need to abandon your schedule due to real world commitments and would like to retract the pre-filed FPL. This is to avoid showing up as pre-filed in some flight lists.