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Ok, this is the second part of my guides. I got a lot of questions about them, how to define, how to make them compatible with SimBrief, how do the real companies handle different types or configs etc. etc. And unfortunately I see some PhpVms friends having struggle with defining them. So what is it ? All airlines do have aircrafts, we call them fleets. But most of the airlines do have different types of aircrafts under their fleets, imagine like having both Airbus A320 and Boeing B737-800 at the same time flying for the same airline. Then you need some "Subfleets" to separate them during operations. And things got really messy when those aircrafts have different seat configurations, imagine a Boeing B737-800 with full economy seats and another one with 150 Economy seats + 16 Business seats. They are still B737-800 but their capacities and weights do change To overcome that changes we do divide them to more "Groups" or "Subfleets". While in real ops, we do have some extra definitions for them and this changes from airline to airline, but here in phpvms v7 we only have "Subfleets" and it is pretty enough to manage our fleets. Lets start to define our Subfleets for Boeing B737-800 fleet; When in admin section, click Fleet from the sidebar , this will open up the Subfleets page (yes there is a confusion there but it is ok). Then click Add New Subfleet from top navbar. Select your airline Select the base/hub of this subfleet (optional but nice to have) Define the short code (type) you wish to use for this subfleet. For this I would kindly suggest having short but descriptive names like B738W-Y189 or just B738W-Y Leave the SimBrief Type empty (for now, will explain it later) Give a nice name to your subfleet. Do not force the limits, a short but nice name would do the trick like Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy Leave Cost Per Hour empty (for now, will explain it later) Leave Cost Delay Per Minute empty (for now, will explain it later) Select JET A as your fuel type Leave Ground Handling Multiplier empty (for now, will explain it later) and click Save. Now we have our first Subfleet, which will hold/contain our 189 seated Boeing 738's. (This is important, we created this new subfleet for only Boeing B738's with full economy seats. Not for all of our Boeing B738's !) So move a little bit down and you will see new items/sections there Ranks ( will explain this later, but leave it empty for now and please do disable/unclick Restrict Aircrafts To Ranks setting in Admin/Settings during your initial setup and test phase) Fares ( I tried to explain the fare logic in another topic, will not do a copy paste here or repeat myself ... Simply add your Economy fare here and set the capacity as 189. Leave price and cost untouched. ) Expenses ( will explain this later in detail ) Files ( No need to explain this i think, these are the files you upload or link to this subfleet. It may be document or a repaint, anything you want to share is possible) Click Save again. Now we will repeat the same process from beginning but now for our different seat configurated B738's ... This time going a little bit fast, click add new subfleet and apply the differences below; Define the short code (type) you wish to use for this subfleet. For this I would kindly suggest having short but descriptive names like B738W-Y150J16 or just B738W-YJ Give a nice name to your subfleet. Do not force the limits, a short but nice name would do the trick like Boeing B737-800 WL Mixed click Save and then quickly add two fares to this subfleet. This time we will need two fares 'cause this subfleet will hold our 2 class seat configurated B738's. So we need both Economy and Business fares (which we created earlier). Set the capacity of Economy fare to 150 and Business to 16 and click Save again to finish the basic setup. Technically that's all you need to do to define and separate different types of aircraft in your fleet. Go ahead and add some aircrafts under these newly created Subfleets. First two aircrafts to the Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy subfleet While adding aircrafts to subfleets, try using standard codes for IATA and ICAO fields. IATA code is not used anywhere but ICAO code is important for flight planning with SimBrief integration. As an example I will add two aircrafts to each subfleet, to do this click on the Subfleet Name (Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy) and then click on New Aircraft . Enter details as below; Status : Active Location : As you wish Name : Clipper Disposable ( This is nothing more than a sticker on the plane, anything you like to have is ok. It may be your name, your child's name or even a place name. It has no legality in real life ops) IATA : 738 ICAO : B738 ( This field is used for SimBrief flight planning, until you define some special code for the whole subfleet. Which will be explained later) Registration : TC-SKR ( This is important and must be unique, this is the licence plate of an aircraft - along with its MSN : Manufacturer Serial Number, think like the VIN of your car ) MTOW : Empty ZFW : Empty Click Save . skip Expenses and Files for now. Click Save again to return back to Subfleet list. Click New Aircraft again and apply the differences as below; Name : Fake Queen ( This is nothing more than a sticker on the plane, anything you like to have is ok. It may be your name, your child's name or even a place name. It has no legality in real life ops) Registration : TC-SKS ( This is important and must be unique, this is the licence plate of an aircraft - along with its MSN : Manufacturer Serial Number, think like the VIN of your car ) Click Save again and then click Fleet from the sidebar. Now add two new aircrafts to your Boeing B737-800 WL Mixed subfleet, just make up two new names and two unique registrations. And you are done. When you look at your Fleet page, you will be seeing something like below; Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy | Disposable Virtual | B738W-Y | 2 | Edit and Delete Icons Boeing B737-800 WL Mixed | Disposable Virtual | B738W-YJ | 2 | Edit and Delete Icons Actually the most important part is over, what you will see below is kind of nerdish details We have two different types, they are different so they will have different weights or specs, and they must have different flight plans ! Well, this may dissapoint you but most of the details will be same but of course there will be some, slight changes between them. And we already handled the most important difference (seat configuration) just minutes ago, so what now ? The weights will be different, which weights ! I know we left MTOW and ZFW empty while defining our subfleets 'cause they have no effect and not being used at all (for now, maybe we can improve phpvms v7 a little bit more to effectively use that fields too). When seat configuration changes, mainly BEW (Basic Empty Weight) and DOW (Dry Operating Weight or Operating Empty Weight) changes. MZFW (Maximum Zero Fuel Weight), MRW (Maximum Ramp Weight), MTOW (Maximum TakeOff Weight) and MLW (Maximum Landing Weight) remains the same. And as you saw, none of these weights are available in PhpVms v7 (at least not now), so we need to use SimBrief to define these differences. (please open a new tab, do not close the phpvms admin tab now) At SimBrief website, click on Saved Airframes (under Dispatch) menu. Then click on New Airframe. Select B737-800 from the dropdown and click proceed. In this tiny but valuable screen we have everything needed and we have the ability to use these settings for our subfleets in PhpVms v7. Just make WEIGHT CHANGES and adjust the MAX PASSENGERS here as you wish (according to your preferred addon aircraft's weights of course), give your new airframes nice names and registrations (don't worry only you will see them, they will not be used on your API generated flight plans). Rest of the info is not necessary for us 'cause we are sending almost all them to SimBrief via our integration system and what we are sending have priority over the airframe we are saving here. So for example, you can define the registration here as TC-DSP , but when generating a new flight plan via our integration we will send the registration as TC-SKS. SimBrief is clever enough to use the submitted one (many thanks to Derek) and your generated ofp will use TC-SKS as the registration. So keeping things short, assuming you just finished editing your new airframe's weights which will be used for your Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy subfleet and ready to save it ... Just copy the Internal ID code from there and click Save Aircraft. Go back to your PhpVms v7 admin section (we left it at Subfleet list and did not closed the tab as far as remember) and click edit icon of your Boeing B737-800 WL Full Economy subfleet. And paste the Internal ID you just coppied there to Simbrief Type field (which we left empty before). It will look like something like this 2458_1615250668421 Now go back to SimBrief tab, create a new airframe and edit its details for your Boeing B737-800 WL Mixed subfleet. Repeat the same process and use your new Internal ID for that subfleet. You may not believe this, but you are done Really this was all, not joking. From now on, when you want to generate a new Operational Flight Plan (OFP) with PhpVms v7 using the SimBrief integration for the members of these subfleets, SimBrief will use the weights and other changes (which we do not overwrite via API) according to the airframes details you saved there. Our SimBrief integration is capable of passing almost every detail you need for a proper flight plan, I know we miss some little details but they are not affecting the reliability of the flight plan at all. What you need is already in your hands and with the addition of proper/addon matching weights all your flight plans will be much realistic. Key Factors for defining SubFleets Do not mix up different aircraft types under a subfleet ( like B738/A320 or A321/A321 NEO ) Do not mix up different seat configurated aircrafts under a subfleet ( like 189 Economy Seats/150 Economy + 16 Business Seats ) Do not mix up different purpose aircrafts under a subfleet ( like Freighter/ Passenger ) Try to keep up your subfleets organized and simple as much as possible There is one possible downside of using SimBrief Airframe ID's for SubFleets. And it is a little bit complicated, imagine some of your pilots are using X-Plane / Zibo B737-800X as their aircraft. So you will try to match your SimBrief airframe details close to Zibo B738 as much as possible, and there is nothing wrong with this. But then a new pilots registers and uses Prepar3D / PMDG B738 NGXu ! What the hell, technically they are the same aircraft but their weights and fuel specs may not be the same. This problem applies to real world operations too so you are not alone. At this situation you need to either create a new subfleet for the PMDG NGXu or find a middle point where the two (PMDG NGXu and Zibo B738X) can share the same airframe id without damaging the realism too much. [ I prefer finding the middle point ] This possible scenario may be extended to Airbus fleets, may include MsFs aircraft and possible future addons ... Our lovely addon developers mostly try to match real specs but weights do differ in real life too. Unfortunately having simbrief airframe id's for every aircraft in your fleet will not solve this problem 'cause one of your X-Plane pilots may take an MsFs configured aircraft and fly with it (by disregarding or accepting the litte changes), so my advice here is written above. Keep your subfleets organized and simple as much as you can, let your pilots do little corrections according to their simulator and aircraft choices. There is another possible solution for this but it needs more improvements in phpvms v7 or a completely independent module. I am working on one but how it will proceed I am not sure yet. Imagine having separate definitions for each addon your pilots have, for example 3 Boeing B737-800 definitions (Zibo B738X, PMDG NGXu for PMDG and PMDG NGxS for MsFs2020) , or 3 Airbus A321 Neo's (ToLiss, Asobo and Aerosoft) and you will be able to select your addon during flight planning, where its proper values will be passed to SimBrief. Honestly this is the only possible solution I thought to overcome this mess. Anyway, thats all for now. Will try to give some more details about expenses next time. Safe flights to all

At the moment the only available ACARS for phpVMS v7 is the one that Nabeel the creator is selling . At the moment i am not planning to release a new version due to lack of time i believe i will be able to continue on the project in the next couple months at the moment i would support Nabeel for the reason that he is working on the platform and he is worth the recognition

Airac 2101 There you go guys

Quick write up for those interesting in this topic. Our VA went through a research phase before settling for PhpVMS7 + VMSAcars. Here are the main reasons behind it. SmartCars is well known however we found out that it doesn't support phpVMS 7 yet so we must use phpVMS 5. phpVMS 5.x is a none starter because it is outdate and won't run on supported version of OS/PHP etc. This leave a potential security hole. That drove us to phpVMS 7. We got a trial version of VMSAcars client to use it with https://demo.phpvms.net/ . We did a lot of testing and -It worked with FSX/P3D -It worked with MSFS2020 -It worked with X-Plane -Everything we needed are being captured in vmsAcars from the simulator. -It doesn't require users to subscribe to get additional feature. -My VA is on discord so chat/radio were not needed that comes with Smartcars. What convince us to proceed is actually the phpVMS discord. We saw how frequently phpVMS and ACARS client are being patched multiple times a week! TDI doesn't offer such frequent patches. Because the main author of phpVMS is also coding the ACARS, they can add new feature and changes as needed much faster. Their Discord is full of people helping each other out far superior. We got phpVMS7 and purchased vmsAcars and went live with our VA. Everything in our VA is going smooth even though the software is labeled as beta. In fact it is far more stable then many live products in the market. Feel free to message me. Hopefully this help.

Airac 2110

Having both, I can say that VMSacars is clearly superior to SmartCars, much lighter, easy and intuitive, in addition to the functions seen above

I think, this will be the last of my guides for v7. Below you can see the pre-defined expenses or expense categories; Subfleet Block Hour Cost Subfleet Delay Cost (per minute) Fuel Cost ( 100LL , Mogas , JetA1 ) Ground Handling Cost Pilot Salary Fare Cost Ok, but what are they ? How realistic are they or how they can be used to get something similar to real world. Well, that's the main problem Subfleet Block Hour Cost Actually this is the aircraft block hour cost, it is the cost to operate an aircraft and for ease it is defined in subfleet level (like many other things) and entered hourly but calculated/applied per minute for each flight. The main difference starts here, real world airlines do have and use block hour costs at aircraft level, not subfleet level but anyway, this is a virtual world and virtual airline so who cares. Technically block hour cost is the total cost per flight hour of that aircraft; including ownership / leasing , fuel , maintenance , insurance , operating crew , non-operating crew , services and other administrative items (like depreciation). We do not have any ownership/leasing cost. Pilots of your airline do pay for their addons, or use freeware / sim defaults. But we can simulate something for this. We do not have to pay for fuel either but we have a fuel expense category defined as a separate item, so our block hour cost should not include fuel. We do not have anything defined for maintenance in v7, if you are not willing to use a module for want to simulate it with some daily, monthly expenses then we should include this item in block hour cost Above applies to insurance too. Either make it simulated with custom expenses or include it in block hour costs We do pay for the operating crew by ranks (per flight hour) or by the flight itself (fixed), so when calculating a value for block hour cost remove the pilot salary from it and include only your virtual cabin crew and airline crew costs You can of course include all your administrative costs like hosting, domain name, vmsacars, theme, module etc payments in administrative category (per flight hour of course) So what we have is simply; Simulated ownership costs, simulated insurance cost, simulated crew cost, simulated others ('cause we have the rest as different expense categories) You can find lots of info via Google or another search engine, every one will have different costs for the same aircraft type 'cause they are all estimates. No airline publicly exposes it's block hour cost per aircraft level. It is a trade secret like the fuel prices they get with contracts. So do not get confused or do not use what you find with the "I am feeling lucky" button. For example, some do say that operating an Airbus A320 costs around $4000 ! While another blogger or website claims it is $3000 another one may say that it is $1000 ... All are non realistic and estimated figures according to the writers knowledge (or estimates calculated from some balance sheets found publicly). Long story short, if you want some values from me, i can say that an Airbus A320 or a Boeing B738 (narrow body medium range aircraft) will cost you around $1800-$1900 range (maybe slightly less) excluding fuel, salaries and services (like ground handling) according to 2020 prices (just before the worldwide lockdowns/pandemic). Here you can see some old values from 2017; (Mx is Maintenance, Ins is Insurance, AC Cost is the ownership/leasing cost ) Aircraft Carrier Crew Fuel AC Cost Mx Ins. Other Total 767-300/ER United $1,556 $2,445 $198 $1,051 $2 $555 $5,806 767-300/ER American $1,540 $2,191 $1,055 $1,378 $4 $84 $6,253 Remove fuel from the total, reduce the crew (or completely remove it too) to get someting for phpvms v7 Subfleet Block Hour Cost. Subfleet Delay Cost per Minute Well this is something hard to explain and hard to apply. Of course real airlines do pay fines when they do have delays, or do have some delay related costs but averaging them to a single value and apply it per minute basis is really hard. Why ? Because you can have some slight delays like +20/30 mins, which will cost you nothing and sometimes you can arrange everything for an expected/planned two hour delay and then it costs nothing , also you may have delays which were caused by uncontrolable factors by you or caused by you then again you pay nothing for that delay. And in real ops, arriving early may cost you some cash which is totaly dependant on the airport you are using, is it regulated or not ? Did you arranged your airport slot or not ? Are you are frequent user of that airport or not ? How may times you violated your slots for that airport in that calendar year ? Same goes for the delays, did you made all arrangements for an unexpected delay like refreshments for your passengers at airport, did you informed them before they leave their hotels or homes, did this delay affected their daily routines/schedules like holiday or late for work , if so how much they were affected and what is the total delay time according to your scheduled arrival time (on block time) ... If you manage your delays well, you probably will pay nothing for that delay, if not it really depends on the requlations being applied to your company and flight. You may end up paying $400/500 per pax, provide them meals/snacks/bewerages etc or worse hotel accommodations,transfers etc. All of the above are time based but not minute based and not applied to every minute you delay So simply, either you will build a really fine schedule to you virtual flights and come up with a good timetable and punish yourself with a fictional delay per minute logic or you may skip using it at all. ( Alternatively you may build up your own delay fines/expenses with your own logic with some code you will develop for delays. ) I personally choosed a mix of skipping and developing my own. So this field is not being used at all in my install. Choice is up to you after all, you are the va admin/owner. Fuel Costs We have 3 different fuel types, which can be selected/defined at Subfleet level BUT we have only one fuel price field. Yes, the fuel prices per fuel type is not yet completely developed or designed (it will be fixed soon I hope). So I will stick with JetA1 (which we have in hand and works just fine). Also we have two calculation methods, you can choose one of them according to your wishes; Calculate fuel cost according to spent/burnt/used fuel for each flight Calculate fuel cost according to uplifted fuel for each flight ( Admin -> Settings : Advanced Fuel Calculations ON ) First option is pretty straight forwards, needs no explanation, you pay for what you burn. Second option is a little bit more complex but realistic. This (so called Advanced Fuel Calculation) method checks the remaining fuel from that aircraft's previous flight and then reduces that amount from current flights block fuel, charges the airline for the amount added on top of the remaining fuel. If this is the first flight of this aircraft then you will pay for all and if there is enough fuel left in the tanks, then you will pay nothing This is close to the real fueling logic and bills. Ok, what about the fuel price ? This also depends on the airline contract, is a trade secret like block cost hours and airline expenses but we have some nice tools online to get some values to begin with. One of them is IATA Fuel Price Monitor others may be 3rd party worldwide service providers. (like RocketRoute). IATA provides region based average values , 3rd party service provides may give you prices per airport. Both are not contracted direct prices, for example RocketRoute provides some service fee and tax info too, so check what is included in the price and for what before direclty using some internet found values. Also the unit type of the presented value matters (very much), do your math correct. Failing this will make your fuel prices really un-realistic at all. PhpVms v7 uses pounds (lbs) as its application level/database level/internal fuel unit (this also applies to vmsacars and your sims) , so any fuel price you are entering should be using pounds according to your currency. Simply the default JetA1 price at settings and the JetA1 price defined for airports are your_currency per pounds (lbs). Let's have an example to get the correct price by using IATA as our source (updated weekly); 1 April 2021 cts/gal $/bbl $/mt vs 1 week vs 1 month Worldwide 158.51 66.58 525.75 -0.5% -7.8% Europe 155.90 65.48 516.63 -2.3% -8.4% cts/gal : US cents per gallon $/bbl : US dollars per barrel $/mt : US dollars per metric ton We need the per pound price, so the math should be; JetA1 price = (158.51 / 6.70) / 100 = 0.236 usd/lbs 1 US Gallon is 6.70 pounds of JetA1 (for division operation) and cts/gal is in cents but we need dollars not cents (second division is for that) JetA1 price = 66.58 / 281.40 = 0.236 usd/lbs 1 US Oilfield Barrel is 42 US Gallons, thus aprx. 281.40 pounds JetA1 price = 525.75 / 2204.62 = 0.238 usd/lbs 1 Metric ton is aprx 2204.62 pounds Rest of the table is for changes according to last week or last month, so if you want to stick with IATA then you can calculate differences and apply them with your own code, or do the update manually as you wish. If you are not using USD as your phpvms currency, then you need to do another math and convert it to your currency You may found different, probably higher prices online 'cause they do include profits of the supplier and the profits of the agency and they are stop-by prices (no contract) and they do differ from airport to airport. Just know how much it costs, come up with a good balanced price for your airline as the owner/admin. Also there is fueling service cost (the workmanship of the fuel guy) , you can add a small amout like 0.01 usd/lbs to your fuel price or you may define your own expense for it which can be applied (or better modified and applied) according to the uplifted fuel amount. Cause most of the providers will charge you with some extra fees if you uplift small amounts (like below 600 lbs etc) and may reduce their service charge for intercontinental aircrafts. Ground Handling Costs Like others this also depends on the contract you made with them, the services you require or which services are used for that flight, the quality of the services available and to the airport of course. But keep in mind that most of the airport authorities do work with ground handling companies, or say they take the airport usage fee's or landing/parking prices, taxes from you via ground handling companies. So these poor guys are always in between the operator and the authority You can find some nice / non-contracted values from internet for basic services (medium amount of counters and staff for your flight, pushback, cleaning, gate services, loading/unloading, passenger transfers, load and balance, paperwork etc will all be included in that price and many more little details which we do not use in our sims). Simply i can say you that, ground handling cost for a narrow body medium sized airliner (A320/B738) will be around $1250 - $1500 range around Europe (maybe a little bit more but not less) And Ground Handling prices do change according to the aircraft type, or the size of it to be more precise, A general aviation aircraft like Cessna 172 will not pay the same ground handling price defined for Boeing 747-800. Same applies to airport landing fee's and taxes, ATC costs etc. To overcome this "little" problem phpvms v7 offers a Ground Handling Multiplier at subfleet level, which is set to 100 by default and simply means that subfleet will pay the %100 of the ground handling price. You are supposed to adjust your subfleets' gh multiplier values if you wish to apply different amounts to different aircraft types (or subfleets) Also keep in mind that, you do always pay double ground handling bills ... One for departure airpor and, one for arrival airport, this is not a bug, this is how it is designed and how it is in real world too. Pilot Salary No need to explain this i think, it is pretty self explaning ... You have two choices; Define rank based per hour pilot wages (separated for both manual and acars pireps) Define flight based per flight pilot wages (defined for each flight you have) Maybe mixing up the two also works (like a bonus for a special flight + hourly salary from ranks but it is something for you to explore) Fare Costs Yes, fares do have costs ... But we defined subfleet block hour costs, what the hell is fare costs for ? Imagine them like the cost of a passenger for the airline, mainly it can be seen as the cost for airport terminal usage fee. Oh yes, there is something like that in real life and airlines do pay bills for every passenger they do carry in/out from that airport. Simply it is the airport operators share and they do not care you are earning money from that flight or just flying with negative balance sheets. They do want it and they do take it, if you do not pay them you can not use their terminals, that simple. Surprisingly enough, they are separated from taxes and landing/departing fees, aircraft parking etc (the airport authority takes them mostly with the help/assistance of ground handling agencies). So this is where phpvms v7's fare logic comes in handy, you can define a generic fare cost at fares, and then increase/reduce it at flight level to have better control over it per airport basis. Imagine you defined $10 (for your base economy fare), but you are flying to LTFM / Istanbul New Airport and they do want to you to pay $15 per passenger, then you can adjust the fare only for your flights to LTFM and edit the cost there. It will be used for financial calculations of those flights. (and be considered for overall va financials etc) Also you can use fare costs for other passenger related costs if you wish, like caterings you offer for free or services you offer for free. Custom Expenses This is where your imagination starts to work or at least needs to work... It is totaly up to you, you can define per flight expenses (like catering or fueling service or tech release service etc) , or can define monthly expenses (like aircraft leasing costs or monthly maintenance or aircraft washing, re-painting etc) or make them daily (like overnight parking, aircraft disinfection due to covid19 measures etc) The best part of this is, you are totaly free here ... Define anything you want and it is flexible, you can define expenses per airline or per flight type, make them multiplied etc. Or better you can charge the user for an expense. Unfortunately the above line is a little bit buggy at the moment, charging a user is not fully developed and the multiplication is not working too. I sent a pr (GitHub pull request for changes) aprx 2 weeks ago to fix that but it is still not accepted/merged so I assume Nabeel has some different plans for the finances. Also some users reported Airline expenses being applied to all airlines etc (but I saw some fixes being merged to development builds, so that part may be fixed. And during some Discord conversations (or was it at the forum maybe) I do read some plans to have time based expenses, which will expand the custom expenses to a new level 'cause then we will be able to define some expenses per flight time (or maybe for ground time who knows) ... Imagine having an Air Traffic Services expense, like in the real world, the more you use the airspace of countries and get ATC services, the more you pay etc. Also there is an option to make event based expenses, which requires some coding knowledge to listen some events phpvms v7 offers, read some values and apply some expenses according to that values. Like listen pirep events, get the landing rate, if it is a hard landing apply a technical check expense to that flight (and/or apply a penalty expense to your pilot in command). Just a personal note for custom expenses; If you define some expense which is a part of Ground Handling Cost or a part of Subfleet Block Hour Cost, do not forget to remove that amount from relevant costs. If you skip this, you will charge yourself extra amounts. (Like including maintenance cost to both Block Hour Cost and having an expense for it too) ========= I think this last bit of my guides for v7 answers some of your questions and helps you to have a better view over the systems/logic of phpvms v7. In the end, all of the above may be wrong This is what i understood from the code running phpvms v7 while I am working to build up my module and trying to fix little bugs reported by users like me. What I added on top is some aviation knowledge and experience of something like 20 years (both sim + real aviation). This applies to all my guides, forum replies, discord messages : Official phpvms v7 docs do have the priority. Safe flights to all and thanks for your time

Hi all, You can find my widgets at below link, https://github.com/FatihKoz/PhpVms7-Widgets As of date, they include ; Personal Stats : Designed to work with vmsAcars reported pireps, stats include average landing rate, average score, total distance, total fuel usage etc per pilot. Airline Stats : Just an overlook of your setup or an airline you have in your setup, total pilots, total flights, total pireps etc. Aircraft Stats : Not a statistical widget but named it once and it stayed , displays your aircraft counts per airport or per icao type designators Airport Aircrafts : Lists any active aircraft at given airport Airport Pireps : Lists all accepted pireprs for given airport Top Airports : Mostly used airports Top Pilots : Overall top pilots by time, distance or flight count Top Pilots By Period : Monthly or yearly top pilots by time, distance or flight count. Can display up to 3 months (current,last,prev) and 2 years (current,last) and has the ability to show your best pilot And please read the readme file I tried to be as clear as possible with examples. If something goes wrong let me know. Enjoy

Airac 2103

I do not understand why people still link or reference PhpVms v5 modules to v7 posts ... They will not work unless you re-write them from ground up, which is technically much harder than building your own module. There is no publicly shared module for fleet management or so called "real booking" logic. And there are reasons for it, the main reason is that phpvms v7 is still under development, though most of the main code is stable and working, this does not mean that it will not be changed and/or logics will stay the same from today to tomorrow. So any module developed today with the latest dev may not work one week later, or work in a non expected way. This little details is keeping developer a little bit away from working on phpvms v7, some of us on the other hand using this development process to build our own modules/widgets etc and improve them as phpvms v7 becomes more stable and capable day by day. For the main question, Maco already builded his own aircraft/fleet location display module and already shared it with people willing to use. I do have shared my module with some selected kind people and virtual airlines who/which are using v7 as their main operational software. And for the aircraft selection logic, there are some options in phpvms v7 which may change how the aircrafts become available to pilots and how they are blocked, so a simple logic (check if there are any aircrafts at that airport and list them) would not work as thought, you need to check multiple options and go through multiple layers of services to get a proper list of aircraft. I am not trying to say that it is impossible, of course it is possible but not easy as most people are thinking. Anyway, in my personal opinion, when v7 reaches a state of RC (release candidate) or gets released as v7.0 some modules will start to be public, maybe free of charge maybe payware but there will be some modules trying to enhance the core. Please just do not share or reference old version modules for v7, which may broke somebodies working installation and/or unwanted/incompatible files may cause trouble later on. Safe flights to all

Hi, this question is the most asked one and with the SimBrief improvements we have in v7 this matter become critical ... Here you can find the basics about the logic and how to setup your fares/subfleets/flights properly. 1. Main Fares You can define your fares in admin/fares. These will be your main fare types, which will then be used in your subfleets or flights. The main idea here is to define only the basics, so you can change them later when needed. Think fares like the seats in your plane (or cargo space), which can be sold as tickets. They are not in flight services or extended service types like WiFi, Hot Meals, Extra Snacks, Economy Premium or Economy Basic, they are just Economy seats you have. So lets start; Economy (Y) Business (J) First Class (F) Cargo (CGO) These are the main fare groups commonly found in airliners, so start with Economy. When you are at admin/fares click Add New, and enter the info as described below Code : Y Name : Economy Type : Passenger ( for Cargo Fares type must be Cargo as expected ) Price : 100 Cost : 25 Capacity : EMPTY / NULL ( Leave it empty, do NOT try writing EMPTY to that field ) Notes : Fill as you wish Active : Checked and click save ... In simple terms we will gain 75 Usd/Eur/Pound (currency comes from your settings) from each passenger 'cause there is an operating cost of a seat. Repeat the steps for rest if you wish. Why we left Capacity empty ? I will explain it later but for now we are just defining our base fares, so no need to have capacities here. 2. SubFleet Fares Assuming you already have at least one subfleet, which is mandatory in v7. We can explain their logic later if necessary. Head up to admin/fleets and click edit one of your subfleets, or just create one and save (so you will be able to see the details). Scroll down a little bit and you will see Fares section there and it is probably empty. This is the area where we "assign" and "adjust" our main fares which will be used for this subfleet. Click on Select Fare, you will see your defined main fares there. Select Economy and click Add. Now the fare is assigned to this subfleet and you will see it above values like below; Name : Economy Code : Y Type : Passenger Capacity : inherited () Price : inherited (100) Cost : inherited (25) This is where v7 magic begins ... I will use an Airbus A320 with only economy class seats as my basic aircraft type. Click on the inherited text under capacity column and enter 180 there. Right now, when you use any member of this subfleet, you will have 180 seats ready for being sold with a price tag of 100 currency and it will cost you 25 currency to operate that seat. If you want to change the price of your tickets or adjust the operating costs of your seats for this subfleet you can follow the same steps for price and cost. If you do so, your ticket prices and/or costs will be changed ONLY for this subfleet. While adjusting prices you can just use pure values like 150 or percentages like 125%. It is up to you how you change the value. Just do not use percentages on capacities, it really does not make any sense Ok, passenger capacity and price/cost was easy ... How about having some cargo space/fare for a passenger plane. They are not designed to carry bigger loads like freighters but they do have some space under their belly, which is mainly used for carrying out passenger baggages, why not use the remaining space to earn some more money ? Normally passenger planes are mostly limited by the cargo hold's (the name of the cargo area) volume but since we do not have any volume checking capability in simulator and phpvms, we will stick only on the weights here. Just add your pre-defined cargo fare to your subfleet like you added the passenger fares. So, the logic is simple; Your Cargo fare should be big enough to hold all your passenger baggages. Then calculation is simple too 180 (our pax capacity) * 35 lbs (our non-charter baggage weight : check admin/setting simbrief for default values) = 6300 lbs should be your minimum Cargo Fare capacity. If you want to carry some paid cargo, then you need to increase this amount up to a point where it does not passes your aircrafts Maximum Zero Fuel Weight when you have full pax on board. I know this may sound a little bit strange but this is how real thing works too If you know your aircraft specification, then you can calculate your possible max cargo capacity by below formula; Maximum Cargo Fare Capacity = MZFW - DOW - ( max pax seat capacity * pax weight ) DOW is Dry Operating Weight (Operating Empty Weight), it is the weight of your aircraft without fuel, passengers and cargo but with crew, catering and airline stuff loaded already. Anyway, if you do not know your DOW and MZFW then just add some space more to the above calculated value, make it like 8000 lbs. So you will have 1700 lbs free space to carry some cargo after taking all the passenger baggages for a fully loaded flight. Please note; If your PhpVms weight settings are KG, just convert the amount you found to kilograms before adjusting the cargo fare capacity. Just another note for SimBrief Form; The cargo fares of passenger planes will show you the Maximum Available capacity, though we named it max in short terms but this may lead confusions. So when you have passengers and their baggage, your cargo fare capacity will be reduced by the weight of the total passenger baggage weight. Therefore it is not the capacity you defined anymore, it is just what is left behind for you to load additional cargo. If you see negative values there, this is a clear indication that your cargo fare capacity is not enough to hold the passenger baggages . And please keep in mind that SimBrief form uses your aircraft, meaning it reads your subfleet fares. It is a flight plan, do not expect it to read the fares of a flight, it is directly related to the aircrafy you want to generate a flight plan. 3. Flight Fares Technically you really do not need to add fares to flights, but the logic is same as adding fares to subfleets. If you want to change the ticket price/cost of a fare for a specific flight you can do it here. Imagine having a special flight with doubled ticket prices, then just add the fare you want to adjust, click on the price or cost columns inherited text and enter 200%. Now you will have doubled price/cost for this flight only I higly suggest you to not to define capacities at main fares and not adjust capacities at flight fares. This really makes life easier, in real world operations we do not define the capacity in fares and for flights (unless there is a special need). Capacity always comes from the aircraft (here in phpvms it comes from the subfleet) and when we (as OCC or Dispatchers) do change the aircraft of a flight or decide to do it with another aircraft other than planned by commercial planning or schedule planning departments of the airline, ticket sale systems just get the new aircraft info and use its capacity to stop the ticket sales automatically if it reaches the max seats. Things do NOT work like the real world here, so if you have a 180 seat aircraft but define a main fare with 219 seat capacity or edit a flight's fare and set capacity to 239 there, results will not be nice And always remember, fare logic follows below order; Flight (has highest priority, when you change thigns here, they will be used) Subfleet / Aircraft (medium priority over fare) Fare (lowest priority and gets overwritten by the ones above) I think this is enough for basic setup and understanding the logic how fares work in PhpVms v7. Safe flights for now, will post some more info about different topics later.

Alrighty, thanks

Just have look to this module; Until you build your own or phpvms offers a better solution, you can use this to display your pireps, airlines and fleet etc. Safe flights,

That means nothing if the link drops, sometimes it will re-establish, it is down to reliability of your link. Doug

Yeah, not really sure what you're trying to do. vmsACARS doesn't download from Simbrief directly. Only a single simbrief gets stored by phpVMS - it's the "phpvms" format that's in the SB downloader. ACARS downloads that from your phpVMS directly, because they get deleted from the SB side pretty quickly. A planned feature I have is that if you have ACARS open without a plan loaded, and you download the flightplan from the SB downloader, it will load the plan directly and try to find and load a bid, if it exists, from phpVMS automatically. But that'll be sometime in the future

Go to your database of PHPVMS via phpmyadmin. Delete all records inside the "files" table. After that check if the download page works again.

I use ranks to pay them ... The higher the rank, the higher their salary (per flight hour). It is up to you after all ; use ranks to define different salaries for each rank (per hour) use ranks to define a fixed amount for all ranks (per hour) use flights to pay them for each flight (fixed) use your own code/logic to define something different from the above

SOLVED. I open the CSV file with LibreOffice Calc and in the Subfleets column I write all the sub-fleets separated by POINT AND COMMA; EXAMPLE: A320-200-NEO; B738W-NG; B787-10; All the text is written within the same cell, the one destined to the subfleet

Found it just edit live_map.blade.php ( located under Disposable_v1\widgets and Disposable_SideBar_v1) , find this (at line 31) <div id="map-info-box" class="map-info-box" rv-show="pirep" style="width: {{ $config['width'] }};"> and change rv-show="pirep" to rv-show="pirep.id" , it should look like this after the edit ; <div id="map-info-box" class="map-info-box" rv-show="pirep.id" style="width: {{ $config['width'] }};"> This happens because that infobox was fixed recently and i missed to update the theme according to that fix.

vmsACARS works with phpVMS v7 smartCARS presently does NOT work with phpVMS v7 If you are using phpVMS v7, vmsACARS is the only present solution. Everyone has problems of some sort with MSFS - after all, it's still an alpha product.

As written in instructions (above), the module has no link or a button. It uses a widget, which can be placed anywhere you wish. (my suggestion is using dashboard/index for this, but you are free to choose your location) How can I help you anymore I do not know. Sorry but I can not edit files on your server or choose a widget location for you If you are new to v7 and laravel theme logic, please check the docs ( docs.phpvms.net ), they will give you the basic idea where to find files etc.

Airac 2102 There you go guys

Told by whom? The most current dev build will be the best for you to use. It's not unstable, but it may still have a few issues. In any case, it is MUCH better than Beta 4.

Thanks for pointing out actually looking at the acars map file instead of just the acars.js file. I fixed it by removing the url portion of the script; iconUrl: url + "/lib/images/inair/" + heading + ".png", to iconUrl: "/lib/images/inair/" + heading + ".png", And it works great!

Really laughed to be honest ...

Airport lookup update to work with same API as used by phpVMS v7. Restores ability to lookup airports for airport table. Adds additional fields to airport table for use in your templates. I've been sitting on these files for a while to be sure the beta testers didn't have any issues. Read the README_1ST.txt file for info. Works with phpVMS 5.5.2 and 5.5.2.72 - not tested with phpVMS 2.x - will not work with phpVMS v7. You will need to manually update each airport after installing this mod to get all the new data in the airports table - use EDIT from airport page, click LOOK UP, click Edit Airport. It will not automatically update all your existing airports. Some lesser known airports are not available in the parsed database - you will have to add those manually. Released as freeware. Shall not be uploaded to other sites without written permission. Thanks to all those who contributed to getting this working. NEW Airport Lookup phpVMS 5.5.2.zip

UPDATE: It looks to be some form of permission issue purely on that directory. As a test I set it to 0777 (not for production) and the database configuration completes. Sorry about all the updates, but trying to be helpful to anyone else who has this issue

Seen this years ago, and hate to say it, but any and all phpvms systems is extremely limited on Airports, "UNLESS"..... your not on a Shared Hosting Company rather a dedicated Server with no limits on the Server for Ram per/say. However, over the years long story short, PHPVMS has a limit of airports , an extreme limit. I've seen this so many times with others, your Limit is only "6000" Airports, unless your running something like the Charter OPS Module, or the Cargo OPS module which has its own Tables. Trust me, anything over 6000 airports things "WILL" start to drastically slow way down. The good news is, if your running a Good Server , then install a second PHPVMS under a different Airline name, I am running 3 at the moment, each has its own specific format. (just an option). If you have the option on your server, (not for the faint hearted), then go to phpmyadmin, and flush some of the Airports out, this takes time, but can be done. This is the safest way for sure. @Dougjuk and of course our fearless leader, @ProAvia they are Both Exactly right for sure !!! Hope this helps,

phpVMS v2.x - https://github.com/phpvms/phpvms_v2 use with PHP 4 - 5.4 supports MySQL 5.6 this version is archived and is no longer support by the author support is very limited through the forum phpVMS v5.5.2 - https://github.com/DavidJClark/phpvms_5.5.x use with PHP 5.5 - 5.6 supports MySql 5.6 and Maria 10.1 this version is no longer supported by the author receives support through this forum only phpVMS v5.5.2.72 - https://github.com/ProAviaAZ/phpvms_5.5.2.72 use with PHP 7.0 - 7.2 supports MySQL 5.6 - 5.7 and MariaDB 10.1 users have reported issues with MariaDB 10.2 and higher this version receives support through this forum only base program issues can be posted to github Users must use the PHP version indicated for each version. Users may experience some issues with MySQL/MariaDB Strict Mode. This may occur when using MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.2+ . If you experience issues, ask you host to turn Strict Mode OFF. The above versions are considered legacy versions of phpVMS. For phpVMS v7, see the phpVMS 7 section of this forum. phpVMS does not work correctly with free hosting. Free hosting has limited functionality and lacks many items needed for phpVMS to properly function.

Thank you for your time explaining the issue with STYLE , yes that is something important to consider when making changes to PHPVMS v7.

As @Parkho suggests, back up your database first. Then, if it doesn't do what you think, you can always restore. I always thought it recalculated the PIREP count - but I've never had a reason to use it on my live site. But I have been wrong before (just ask my wife 🤣).

My most sincere condolences on your loss. You will most certainly be in my prayers. What I did for now was replace the flight/index.blade.php from the disposable tools skin with the original index.blade.php file and it seems to work OK, although the formatting isn't perfect. But it will certainly work for now. Maybe at some point in the future I can figure out a better option, but that can wait. Thanks for you help, and don't give this any thought.

Upload your own logo to your server... Then edit the blade files to use your logo files instead of the pre-defined / default ones. Original Logo (example) <img src="{{ public_asset('/assets/img/logo_blue.svg') }}" class="rounded img-mh50"> Your Logo (example) <img src="{{ public_asset('/myfolder/myanotherfolder/mylogo.jpg') }}" class="rounded img-mh50"> or <img src="{{ public_asset('/myfolder/mylogo_big.png') }}" class="rounded img-mh100"> Commonly, editing app.blade.php of your theme would be enough to apply your logo to all other blades. ( This depends on the theme you use, default / disposable / stisla uses the same logic but others may be different )

Thanks Disposable, I've used the versions for 11 years as I'd mentioned elsewhere so no "expectations" , the software as is made available by the developer and others such as yourself is much appreciated and used anyway. Just needed to clarify , hence the questions ..thanks for the clarifications Regards

Great work, many thanks

View File Ranks This module albeit simple, pulls the list of ranks your VA has, and gives the ability to show what aircraft are within said rank so pilots can tell when and at what rank aircraft they want to fly can be flown. Submitter Strider Submitted 04/24/21 Category Addons  

Go to your (sub)fleet page, there you can manage the downloads. Even at "Airports" and "Airlines"

We had lots of problems with MsFs 2020 ... And will continue having them for maybe a year or more And most of the problems we were/are/will be facing are not vmsAcars related, but directly caused by Asobo/Ms itself. Like assigning 5 letter codes to imaginary airports, not allowing to read scenery data, not allowing 3rd party apps to read aircraft data etc etc. As it develops, all will be solved (i hope) SmartCARS currently have no advantages for v7 'cause it is not compatible at all. But if we imagine it works (with its current form) then main disadvantages will be; 1. Not working with v7 2. It is expensive 3. It does not offer flight save/resume option without a subscription On the other hand, compared to SmartCARS vmsAcars does not have eye candy or ear candy features (yet) like custom sound sets being played during your flight , or a chat feature , an online radio etc and just a little bit limited maybe (this depends on the sim and addons used though, not a fact for me) As @ProAvia mentioned, vmsAcars has the biggest advantage for v7 1. It works with v7 2. It is developed by the same person developing phpvms 3. Cheaper 4. Does not consume cpu/gpu/ram resources compared to others So, if you want to stick with v7, then your only option is vmsAcars unless you are capable of developing your own

I am also a vmsAcars user on our Airline and it is very good, Nabeel is always improving it to make it even better. We are happy we bought it. Doug

fantastic, glad I could help, I too am not very good at this stuff. regards Doug

I took the concept and did it -- yes. You'll want the entire track flight function copied over and then you need to call it when clicking on the pilot (so will need to make code for the onClick that fires off trackflight with their PID.

Airac 2014 There you guys go.

In the phpVMS settings, disable the aircraft restrictions. This restricts based off the aircraft available to the user and what's at the airport

OP hasn't visited the forums since 2016. Chances are their skins are no longer available.

Your very welcome, what I do as mentioned, is rely on the Charter OPS, Executive OPS, and other modules that have a set of tables all on their own, hence not relying on strictly the phpvms tables for airports. As mentioned by others also, you can create different sets of phpvms airports also which will allow you to mix and match on an import and export of sets of "example"; Major airports, small airports, and / or both mixed. This is very versatile and allows me each set of aiports "7000" MAX, to mix and match either each month or as I so desire. Allowing of course a variety of different avenues. There is really no easy way of doing this, it does take a lot of work, but in the long run it at least frees up the Database. Do remember that anytime you change your airports, and mix them up, just remember your Schedules that are already assigned in your phpvms schedules systems. I am working on figuring out a way to duplicate the main phpvms airport structures, thus allowing duplications of schedules without having to reload everything again and again. I also have created what we call at Heritage, a Pilot Route Request Form, which allows me first and foremost to give the Members the chance to get what they like into our system. The form is in PHP, and allows them in Order, to enter the Departure Airport and the Matching Arrival Airport they want, with a 20 Entry Level Limit. In layman terms, 20 sets of Routes. This has for sure helped us out in a Major way. Let me know if you would like to see a Demo, I can give you one quickly to give you some idea. Hope this helps you, and again your Welcome. Jim "Heritage1"

I have only had our site working for 3 weeks but I made a file with over 15,000 airports and it slowed it all down. So I slimmed them all down, if the airport is not in the system it will add them as it goes if the system can look them up. Its best to keep the file as small as you can get away with. The same with flights, our old website had 4000 flights which caused all sorts of problems. regards Doug

Okay, thanks! Sorry for late reply. But that really helps. Aidas