Those fields won’t be implemented, unless there’s a request from the vSOA department to include them in the future (and even if that’s requested, it would be optional)
Kirk is correct. The basic rules for the form will follow the document I link above, but it won’t be an exact replica. The document is still very useful as a quick reference for Equipment and transponder codes, for instance.
One of the biggest issues for controllers, and something we’re trying to move away from, is the FAA equipment code. vPilot did not accept ICAO equipment/transponder codes.
30 minutes before boarding time was not really the best time to find out that all these changes happened, as I’m now scrambling to figure out how to file this flight plan whilst trying to maintain an on-time departure. I use PFPX rather than SimBrief, so it’s not a case of just importing the flight plan.
This does not hold water either; if that were the case, why don’t your programmers merely reprogramme that part of the application and leave the rest of it alone?
I never really used the vPilot flight plan filing to file my flight plans. However I have to add that I do use Simbrief and its prefile on network function.
I did however use the flight plan function every now and then to check if the flight plan was there and actually the same as I had in the sim, just to make sure ATC wasn’t seeing something completely different.
I agree however with @1176727 that it would’ve also been a case of reprogramming that feature instead of axing it. Adapting the software to meet the flightplan filing requirements rather than sending the user to a website is just a better option imho. I am not a programmer myself and wouldn’t know, but just by guessing it would probably be an easy task to change an existing portion - and maybe that is also a thing Ross might be working on once VATSIM changed its overall filing form.
Maybe that’s also why this change was made in the first place until that happens.
Having to update multiple clients when a particular aspect of our technology changes has always been an impediment to making technological progress at any real pace. The less functionality that is duplicated across clients, the better. It just doesn’t make sense for every pilot client development team (there are currently three, and there could be more in the future) to adapt their flight plan form to the new format, and update the networking code to follow the new protocol, and keep pace with any changes that may happen in the future, when instead the VATSIM tech team can maintain a single web form that any pilot can access through a browser.
If people have issues with the web form, then it’s best to raise those issues and help the tech team address them in a single place.
This was published on our tech blog and reposted in the usual news places a month ahead of time to warn people of the incoming update for exactly this reason; to avoid people spawning in and finding the flight plan system had changed.
I don’t have a specific date right now. Most of the work is done, I just need to go over a few things with the Tech Leads.
I do expect it to be released as a “beta” at first, meaning we’ll keep the old form in there as a backup in case something goes wrong, and gather some data on the new system before it becomes the default. I expect something to be posted on https://tech.vatsim.net/ as soon as we have a concrete timeline, but it should happen very soon
Ok than main issue is login. Why we can not login via username or e-mail to vatsim web pages?
I somehow can not remember that CID at all and when I need to go to vatsim web page, first I need to check mail for this number that I got on very first mail from Vatsim,copy it and than I can login to the page and do something.
And now with this change to vpilot and flight plan I will need to do this extra step each time I want to fly somewhere bcs I need to fill flp on web.
You can file a flight plan up to 2 hours in advance of your departure, in my opion makes it easier because I can plan, and file a flight before I even open my Simulator.
Use a web browser that will save your VATSIM details, via an auto fill.
You mentioned not being able to remember your CID, but you did not mention not being able to remember your password. I hope you’re not using the same password for everything.
As was said previously, just about everyone deals with this issue (not just on VATSIM, but on every website where they need to log in) by having the browser remember your credentials. What you’re calling the “main issue” has been solved since the earliest days of the web.
Well, pretty much anything that has an additional / in the RMK field will be dropped. For instance, if I have “RMK/VIRTUALNATO.ORG VSOA STS/STATE FLTTYP/M” then everything after STS disappears entirely. Thanks for investigating this!
FLTTYP ist ADEXP format and should be “FLTTYP M”, but that doesn’t belong into the flight plan form - it is part of item 8 (and also missing in the current form).
Well yeah, but the current parser uses / delimiters. I would just like to have the possibility of keeping extra remarks where they are since, as you correctly pointed out, they have nowhere else to go.
Edit for clarification: STAYINFO/ should stay there too, but it’s dropped. I’m not saying FLTTYP/M was the best example, but I see no reason why it should disappear into oblivion
