From next update on there won’t be the flight plan window in vPilot any longer.
Worst idea ever. You forgot about those flying in a real cockpit without access to a browser after entering.
And those flying VFR you will take away the possibility to send the flightplan as .vfp from Little Navmap to vPilot. Result: They will fly without plan, as it is not obligatory in most countries. Simbrief is a wonderful tool for IFR planning, but useless for (and not aimed to) VFR.
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I’m sorry, but in todays age you always have access to a simple browser by a tablet or by a mobile phone, even if you are in a full cockpit simulator.
But its true, for a quick vfr flight plan I am also still using the vpilot window, as its quite a hassle to enter every required field in the online form every time, so I hope we get some kind of saving and loading function so one can just load in one of the past plans to make filing vfr plans easier.
As controller however I am rally happy about this change as this will mean that finally most people will be filing icao codes for the equipment.
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Please consider the fact that you don’t know all of the reasoning behind the decision. VATSIM is moving away from the FAA-style flight plan and over to ICAO-style flight plans, not just in the web form, but also at the server and network protocol level. It makes perfect sense to have all flight plans flow through the web form, so that all pilot clients don’t have to update their forms and network protocol to ICAO style and maintain them as the flight plan system evolves over time.
You say this is the “worst idea ever” and I say that your excuse of not having a browser is the “worst excuse ever”. If you have access to vPilot, you can have access to a web browser. Also, you can do what most full cockpit users do, and file their flight plan from outside the cockpit before entering. After all, most real airliner pilots don’t file their flight plans from the flight deck. And most non-airliner pilots that file from the cockpit will do so using a tablet or phone, which you can do as well.
I believe the tech team is indeed working on the ability to load/save plans and have the form remember your last-used values. These were the final improvements I was waiting for before removing the flight plan form from vPilot.
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THX for clarification. Still sad to hear the reasoning behind does not open another opportunity. You´re by sure right, there are workarounds for browser access, not as comfortable as with the old vPilot window, but not impossible.
For VFR one can only hope Alexander will find a way to export the plan from Little Navmap to the website as SimBrief does. This should be in the interests of controllers in particular not to have most VFR pilots flying without any flightplan.
We are currently working on improvements for the flight plan form on myVATSIM, including some guidance for new members.
I’ll personally look for feedback on the new version once it’s released, and we will be making adjustments and improvements over time - a simpler form for VFR has been suggested already, but I still need to work on that idea and see what we can come up with.
As for importing .vfp files, that will not be possible unfortunately, as the format still uses the FAA equipment code that we’re trying to move away from. A new format might be used in the future, but it won’t be available at the initial release.
Ross,
is …Plugins.IBroker.FileFlightPlan being removed from the plugin interface as well?
Was considering making a SimBrief plan to VATSIM bridge in VSR, Without the need for an authenticated VATSIM web session in a browser. But this was low down on priorities
thanks
/DB
Yes, you won’t be able to file through a plugin either. (The reasoning for removing the flight plan form applies equally to removing the plugin capability.)
OK thanks, no great loss
@1277383 Will this now be implemented before March 1st?
Think it’s the other way around to reduce the features now available via vPilot in the online FP filing system. Would be the right way like Ross says to have all the current vPilot functionalites available before removing it from vPilot.
See now 2 different statements saying 2 different things?? Or am i mistaken?
Like i mention in the discord topic, also please remove the “*” with the fuel endurance field. It’s not available in real-life ATC flightplans, so why on VATSIM?
As I said above:
I’m looking at new formats to use that ideally are already implemented on planning tools used by pilots, but it won’t be available March 1st
I agree with the OP. I’m switching to Swift so I can continue to import my flight plan from LNM without the unnecessary hassle of that awful web form.
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Yeah this is slightly annoying for me (first world problems). I understand and support the move to the ICAO flight plan format, it’s what we use in the real world, however I liked to use the flight plan window to quickly reference my flight plan once in a while. It’d be nice if the flight plan window was stripped down to show the basic flight plan, and have a “file flight plan” button that opened the web browser from there. If you’re not going to do that, I understand, however some indication on the button that it is opening a new window/browser would be a better UI choice.
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The Blue button on the “MyVATSIM” flightplanning page opens up a window where you can paste in an “ICAO FPL” in text format.
I researched the official format foran ICAO FPL file, and have written a programme that takes a “Route-plan” from PlanG/LittleNavMap/SkyDeamon and creates an “ICAO FPL” .txt file.
That file can be saved for future reference, or opened (notepad etc) and the text copied and pasted into the FPL window - job done! (The programme will, if required, copy the text straight to your clipboard ready for pasting.)
Might need a couple of bits - time of flight etc manually adjusting as there is no field for that in an ICAO FPL!
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One thing I really liked about the FP window wasn’t the ability to submit a flight plan, but was actually the ability to click “view flight plan” and see any updates the controller may have put into my route. Would it be possible to have a “read only” view of this where I could see any changes to the flight plan as a controller updates it? Sure, I’ll get it via voice as well, but I enjoyed personally seeing this in the text.
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I have been unable to fly on Vatsim for over a day now with the new method. I have prefiled a flight plan from Simbrief and it has shown up in Vatsim FlightPlan form and I have pressed the Green button but the Plan does not show up in Vattastic or to any controllers and not to my Virtual Airline…
What is wrong … I have been tearing my hair out.
My aircraft does show at the DEP airport but no FPL.
Please help.
A STEP by STEP guide would be nice for us…
Mostly if the flight plan does not show up the callsign you are connected as and the one you filed are not identical, check again if there is a typowhen you connect in vpilot or in the callsign field of the flightplan.
Vatspy does also show prefiled flightplans, so if you see the flightplan on vatspy but it is greyed out it means that you are not connected with the same callsign the flightplan was filed under
I agree, a tutorial would have been a great idea rather than just waking up one day and everything is different. Not everyone who sims are a computer genius, so as you stated a guide to this transition would be very welcomed!
Try getting to a browser whilst you are in VR 
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I don’t use VR so I haven’t kept up with the options for pulling a desktop window such as vPilot into VR, but were you able to fill out the vPilot flight plan form from within VR?
As mentioned previously, to allow a VR option I was going to map the simbrief FP into the VPilot FO via the API and a plugin, but to be honest it’s not a significant issue., as think people adjust their workflows to do all the planning groundwork outside of VR then use things like VSR to stay in VR during the flight