MattW

I've archived the repo and won't do any further development. Thanks for your support.

The Flight Of Passage has finally come to an end. There's a playlist which contains all 19 episodes with around 40 hours of flying from coast to coast. With the exception of one leg we've done the entire tour with VFR, no radios, no GPS, no autopilot. Just maps, eyes, compass and a little bit of cheating with the weather. Because I discovered for myself it's not a good idea to fly a Cub during the freezing winter season using "Live" weather. Happy XMAS everyone!

Starting tonight (hopefully around 8pm UTC) I am going on this Flight Of Passage from scratch and streaming the entire tour with all its legs on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mattw_ifa Probably over several weeks (I got wife, kids and a day job to take care of, so I’m not going to stream for 8 hours at a time…) You’re very welcome to join me if you’d like, either in the virtual world (FS2020) or on the Twitch platform. Beware - I’m not a seasoned streamer-bro but a middle aged guy who’s trying to stay in step with the younger generation. I’m curious how all of this is going to work out!

Maybe some of you have read the lovely book "Flight Of Passage - A Memoir" by Rinker Buck. It's a story about two teenage boys flying from coast to coast in a Piper Cub across the USA. For IFA (www.icefireair.com) I've created a tour (and a soundtrack!) which retraces as best as possible this grand adventure. I'd love you to join IFA if you're a fan of bush flying. But all flightplans (FS2020, FSX, P3D and XP11/12) as well as route descriptions and the sound track link are available without registration. Visit https://www.icefireair.com/ifatours/tours/12 for more info. You can also join me on Discord for any questions, feedback or just for fun. Clear skies for all of you!

I'm sorry. I really didn't see this, it's rather hidden at the end of the readme. No offense intended. I have removed your plugin from the installation since I (almost) have no use for its functionality, at least currently.

One of the things I offer in my VA are tours, so far so good. One of my tours has several legs but also includes the necessity to follow a certain set of waypoints in the air. See https://www.icefireair.com/ifatours/tours/9 Currently the only way for me to make these waypoints accessible to pilots is to attach a flight plan. But I cannot check (apart from taking a look at the duration of the flight legs) whether the pilot has actually flown the intended route. Now you could say: If the pilot wants to cheat his way around, it's his own loss, because this whole simulator thing is about experiencing the actualy flying part, not about cheating an avatar to the top of the leaderboard. But you know how it is... Now currently I'm restricted (as far as I can determine) to airports as "waypoints" for routes. Which basically means that a route will only be accepted as completed when the pilot has reached the destination airport of a tour leg. I'd love to have a feature where I can add generic waypoints to a tour which will be recognized by ACARS once a pilot flies over it. There already seems to be some GeoService class which, to a certain extent, is able to check against coordinates. But there'd have to be a lot more than that, e.g. a new type of destination, "waypoint", new completion checks for legs that only partly consist of waypoints, extended error handling, etcetc. And there'd probably have to be additional development on the ACARS client? Seems to be a taller order than reasonable (for what it is trying to achieve), but maybe I'm thinking too complicated?

i decided to delete the repo, makes no sense to me to keep one just for the single class. we could actually delete this thread. there's one good learning for me: enums for the pireps-state, which will find its way into the tours module. thanks for this, dispo

Valid questions/remarks, also on github - thanks a lot for this. I'll declutter the entire thing and reduce it to an awards class.

Point taken, everyone's view on the support matter is clear, no sense in arguing any further for me. Sim is MSFS Aircraft was C208 GC EX Airport was BITO Thanks.

Well, being the grumpy old man I am, for me support has effectively ended if there won't be any more development to fix issues. I guess the reason probably is a lack of capacity if phpvms/vmsacars is a one man side project show, but for the customers affected by bugs the reasons do not really matter, and it's unsatisfactory, as you can imagine. After all, we paid for the software without getting a clear hint that there wouldn't be any support. Maybe I should have become wary at the no-refund-clause. Anyway, I'll help however I can. Are there similarities between the small number of users in terms of setup or software? Did it happen to X-Plane users or only MSFS?

excellent idea. thank you!

The forum anti spam artificial stupidity drove me nuts right there. Tried to post a log extract inline as code. Wouldn't let me post, says it's spam. Tried to shorten the extract and remove redundant lines. Wouldn't let me post, says it's spam. Tried to attach a txt file, wouldn't let me, only images allowed. Tried to post regular text without attachment, wouldn't let me, because I've tried too often, wait a couple minutes. Didn't say HOW MANY MINUTES. Tried again after a couple minutes (like 4-5), wouldn't let me, because I've tried too often. Wait a couple more minutes. Tried again like 15 minutes after that. Still blocked. For crying out loud. What kind of ungodly chastisement is this?! Anyway. I put a log extract here to download. https://www.icefireair.com/assets/ifa/files/log.txt The log contains lines with "11-12 22:30:37|INFO; Arrived clicked", I didn't click anything, vmsACARS ended the flight on its own, prematurely, while I was still taxiing. All ACARS rule violations were deactivated, by the way, to have the least possible friction. Apart from that: You said, the current version of vmsACARS wasn't supported anymore. But it's still being sold. That doesn't necessarily build much trust towards future versions, really. There may be reasons why support for v1 ended, but then I wouldn't sell it anymore until v2 is out. Or state CLEARLY on the product page, that the software isn't supported anymore but a new version is being worked on and the buyer will, through buying the old version, help accelerate the development of the new version. Or something. Anything. Edit: adding infos about my equipment for debug reasons: * MSFS 2020 on Windows 11 * FSUIPC 7 (latest version) * Logitech G Yoke (no drivers, works out of the box) * Thrustmaster T-Flight Pedals with latest drivers from Thrustmaster (but no Target software)

Another very small plugin, just a starting point: IfaAwards issuing awards based on statistical achievements beyond what phpvms currently offers (hours, number of flights etc.). Currently I've implemented accumulated flown distance (or planned, depending on which sum is greater). Problem is that ACARS not always records the correct value for real flown distance. Anybody welcome to use it if they find value in it. Just configure any number of awards with the class "Pilot Flight Distance" with an according value in nautical miles and next time a PIREP is being accepted, the system checks for accumulated nm for the pilot and will automatically issue the configured award. More to come as time goes by... suggestions welcome. https://github.com/FnordLord/IfaAwards

Updates! Our small fleet’s growing: Bought a used but well maintained Cessna T207A Turbo Stationair (MSFS default) and added it as an option to our tours/charters. There’s also a couple of new tours, from rescue missions to scientific research flights - check it out! https://www.icefireair.com

affirm, i'll do that next time it occurs

Unfortunately vmsACARS is becoming increasingly unreliable. I haven't found out what exactly the reason is, but about half of all flights I did the last few days end prematurely in ACARS, pretty much directly after touching down. Additionally it doesn't seem to like landing outside of a regular runway. I've created a tour for my VA where people have to land on a small island names Grimsey north of Iceland (https://maps.app.goo.gl/LTuqS61v5tNMyLni7) Of course I did the tour myself first to test it, and immediately after touch down on the ground (which is not registered as airfield in MS) ACARS again ended the flight. It's starting to get a little bit frustrating overall...

Good idea, but that option (engine stop) is already activated in my setup, and i can safely say that the auto-ending happens anyway.

I have kind of the same error. But it doesn't need autobrakes for me. Sometimes ACARS simply ends the flight after touch down and while taxiing to the ramp. Haven't found any pattern here yet other than it happens pretty much directly after touch down. Might have something to do with the ruleset and how it is enforced? I'll try to play around with the rules and see if I can find out something.

https://www.icefireair.com/ I'll keep this ad short and simple. IFA has begun operations and is offering a new home to pilots of all experience levels who have a special love for bush flying - on ICELAND! Our base of operations is in Reykjavik (BIRK) with another hub on the eastern coast in Egilsstadir. We fly small to medium sized piston and turboprop aircraft. We've got a relaxed rule set with ACARS and (in most cases) automatic PIREP approval. We're not trying to simulate in every little detail a real airline. Instead the focus is on entertaining charters and tours with a story background, awards and live events where we fly together and enjoy the awesome landscape Iceland has to offer. We'd love to welcome you! Any questions or comments? Join us on Discord! P.S. First 10 pilots to join will receive a special founding flyer award.

For my own VA I have created a simple plugin which adds to phpVMS a Tour/Charter system for airline managers to group flights into tours. Each tour consists of several legs/flights which can be bid on and completed separately. The plugin keeps track of the pilot's progress and automatically issues an award (if one was added to the tour), once all PIREPs from the tour legs were accepted. IfaTours makes as much use of core functionality as possible, using the default awards and flights from phpVMS. If you don't like it you can safely remove the plugin and move on, IfaTours won't modify the code or database tables from the core phpVMS system. Image upload feature is included in the tour creation. I'm a lazy ass and hate it when I have to use a separate tool to upload files to a server (e.g. teaser images for my tours...) https://github.com/FnordLord/IfaTours Reason why: I appreciate the great efforts from guys like Disposable who probably (haven't had a chance to try it) has an excellent tour system in his massive plugin collection, but I wanted something simpler (plus I was curious about the innards of phpVMS), so there it is. Feel free to add it to the addons directory if it qualifies.