Real Flight Booking

[Sava]

Hello everyone.

It has been a while since I had joined the phpVMS community.

While it is the best software out there for VAs by far, the lack of realistic flight tracking has always bothered me.

I am considering creating this kind of module and I am interested in how many of you would like to use somthing like this.

The "bad" news is that I will most probably be releasing the module as payware. I still haven't decided on the price but it will be around the price some of SimPilot's modules are selling for, depending on the amount of work it will take. how the module will function and what it will do has been described by me in an another topic.

Totally disregard phpVMS's fleet alocation and disregard what has been put into the schedules. Do it like this:

A pilot is initially put at the hub and all aircraft are at the hub. The pilot then sees all the schedules from the current location (hub the first time) and can bid on any of those flights. Let's say I am at LYBE. I then chose to fly from LYBE to LOWW. After I click on Book/Add to Bid or something like that, i still didn't place the booking but I am taken to an another page that shows a list of all aircraft available at my location. I get something like:

Select aicraft for flight LYBE-LOWW:

B737-700 (YU-AAA)

B737-700 (YU-AAB)

B767-300 (YU-AAC)

etc. So you get a list of all aircraft there. Not just by type but also by registration etc. Then you choose the aircraft and the flight is then booked. The aircraft now does not appear on the list for other pilots. I land in LOWW and I am then placed there as well as the aircraft I have chosen. I then choose the flight back to LYBE and choose the A/C for the trip (only one avail. if someone else hasn't also flown in the meantime to LOWW). Only once I land back the A/C becomes available to other pilots.

This is close to what you already done so it might be good if you can do it like this.

So, who would be interersted?

[nabpp]

sounds allot like simpilots RSL add on but i have been having a horrible time setting it back up because i switched hosts but yea man sounds great. Let me know if you would ever need a beta tester hehe

[Sava]

It will be different then RSL because you don't need to loop routes etc etc.

And I don't think I will need beta testers .

[nabpp]

oh okay awesome and i thought i might just but the offer out there any idea when you may start?

[nabpp]

and do you have any addons already made?

[Sava]

If I get positive response I will start sometime next week in hopes to have it done by end of this year. Ofcourse, as real life and paid projects permit

I have two addons out there. LoA and Hub Transfer

[nabpp]

oh okay yea i have LoA on my site its nice.

[Ariel]

you cant create a module depending on positive response from the public...thats insane ...you already made it worse and let attractive to the average phpvms ceo by saying its going to be payware...dont scare more ppl off by waiting on the publics response to what YOU want to do!

[Sava]

Well yes I actually can create a module depending on the public response.

It is useful for me to get an idea on how many people would buy this before spending time on creating it.

I am not scaring anyone....

[nabpp]

Sava has a point why invest hours of coding if only a few pepole would want to buy it but i dont think i will be buying but great idea

[Stealthbird97]

I'd probably would be interested Sava.

It would depend on what the differences would be from Parkos Flight Booking System V3.0 as he has fixed the problems with RSL and changed the layout of it.

I believe that your idea in the quote was on his Topic on his Flight Booking System V2.0

[Sava]

I have worked on this a bit several days ago. I am currently basing it on the default Schedules module, but if it ends up working, I will most probably be repackaging it and release it as a separate module which will be payware. Though, I am still not sure, and might just keep it as an exclusive to my VA.

What I have done at this point is that when you want to book a flight, you are taken to the brief page where it asks you to select an aircraft for the flight. It only displays aircraft which are currently at your present location and have not been booked by someone already. The pilot location is tracked via a new table column, that is first set as the HUB and then is updated once an admin accepts the PIREP. The aircraft location is also tracked on a new column and is also changed upon accepting the PIREP. So, once you select a flight, the a/c is assigned to the schedule instead of the default aircraft set in phpVMS schedules. Once you book one flight, you are not allowed to book another one before you complete the current booked flight, or delete the booking. Once you are ready to take-up the flight and start kACARS, you get the selected A/C instead of the default schedule's one sent to the application via XML. Also, when you have a booking, it will only display that single A/C when you click on get aircraft on the bottom. If you are flying a charter, it displays only the current location A/C once you click Get Aircraft. The only issue I see is that the pilots have to wait when the flight is submitted for the admin to accept it before flying again but I will fix that with auto-confirmation of PIREPS.

That is what I have completed until now. I still have to add a few features, complete the relocation upon receiving a PIREP and do a bit of beta testing, but I hope to have it done by the end of next week as my free time is limited with school and stuff starting again.

Here is a little screenshot. Bare in mind the entire page is still a WIP and I am planning on doing a much advanced briefing some time soon (not included with addon if i release it)

http://i.imgur.com/h9EOx.jpg

[Sava]

This has been finished and launched for my VA. It works without any issues as described in my posts.

I will consider repacking this and releasing it as payware, but still not sure.

How many of you would be interested?

[Shepred]

I would definantly be interested, as stated via PM & Skype!

[Jakubovsky]

I would definantly be interested

[ahughes3]

Did this ever get released?

[t_bergman]

Did this ever get released?

No, closest is SimPilots realschedule which has been abandoned. Otherwise I believe Parkho has something like it too.

[Sava]

I actually didn't release it. It worked for my VA for the next 2 years until we shut down. Worked perfectly together with a custom version of kACARS that didn't include charters. I might actually release that, but I have to investigate how it would work with other ACARS systems and actually take a look at the code again, considering I wrote it 2 years ago.

[ahughes3]

I would be interested in this if it were compatible with kACARS. I can't stand not having realistic tracking of fleet and stopping pilots from just doing one way flights.