A few questions about VA's and phpvms

[Will]

Hi guys,

On my own, I've started to setup my own VA website (it's a fictional airline) and I have also managed a re-paint on the PMDG MD-11. I'm from the UK and the UK will be the base of operations.

I've set up 28 airports in PHPVMS and will schedule flights to and from Heathrow & Gatwick to these popular destinations around the world.

I have a couple of question's I'd like to ask you guys, if your willing to help.

1) Flight Plans.

I'm currently using "asalink" free route finder to plot the route for a schedule. Is this actually necessary to do? How many of your pilots actually follow the route you provide?

2) Fleet.

I'm currently thinking of using the MD-11, 747, 737 from PMDG and will also try a re-paint of the stock 737/747 (as not all pilots will own pmdg aircraft). In all that is 3 aircraft.

I've come across a multitude of VA websites that have multiple of the same Aircraft with different registrations. I've only seen one VA that doesn't do this. I would like to know why this is?

3) Working out Flight Time.

What is the best way to work out the flight time between destinations. I've managed to do two (EGLL->EDDM and EDDM->EGLL), which was simple enough as I was able to find a similiar flight on Heathrow's website.

4) How do I get the actual route flown to display on the pirep map. My navdata table is empty. Do I need to add the contents navdata.sql to it?

Also in the github link "https://github.com/nshahzad/phpvms_navdata" it says to download some files and put them in the FAA folder but I can't seem to locate that folder. Once this is done, will existing pireps show the route instead of a straight line?

5) Is it possible to show the route being flown on the live maps too?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Strider]

for question 5, your pilots will have to use FSPAX, Xacars, Kacars, FSFK or FSACARS(not supported but still can be used). Question 4, yes you have to import the navdata.sql file into the navdatatable. Question 3, you have to learn the times of each airport and country and figure out the time that corrasponds to the tiime in the UK then make the calculation that way. Also use the distance and average the time, as the time can fluctuate.for question 2, dont paint the stock 737 and 747 use the posky 747 and 737, they are the best freeware and look the most realistic. Also use the ifdg MD11 as that is the best that I know of. Question 1, it is up to you, pilots can use them or plot their own route. There is no way of forcing them to use the route you provide. Also make sure you are not using free hosts, as phpvms+free hosts = not very good. Free hosts tend to have certain functions turned off, that phpvms needs.

[Jeff]

Answer to question #3: You can try http://www.flightaware.com for flight times between airports. If you cannot find them there, PM me and I can probably help you with just about any route time you are trying to figure out.

Answer to question #1: You can use vRoute to find real-world routes between two airports.

[Will]

Thank you for the replies.

I manage my own servers, so I'm sorted there.