Changelog

For the next couple of days a Beta version is available at https://beta.vamsys.io

Dispatch Table Changes

This Beta is for testing changes to Dispatch Table and it’s related settings.

Virtual Airlines can now fully customize the Dispatch Table defaults in Orwell Settings → Booking & Dispatch:

Column Management

• Drag-and-drop to reorder columns as you prefer

• Set which columns are visible by default for new visitors

• Rename any column with custom labels (e.g., rename "Tags" to "Route Type")

Airport Display Options

• Choose how departure and arrival airports are displayed independently:

Days of Operation Format

• Abbreviated: Mon, Tue, Wed, Daily

• Numeric: 1234567 (except when all 7 are picked, then it’s Daily)

Default Sorting

• Set which column the table sorts by when pilots first visit

• Choose ascending or descending order

Note: Pilots can still toggle columns and change sorting during their session - their preferences are remembered. These settings control what new visitors or expired sessions see by default.

Carrying on from yesterday, addressing some of the remaining bugs before we move onto final tasks of the year:

5.3.23 hotfix applied yesterday shortly after 5.3.23 release:

• Fixed Registration Rejected email sending when reason has special characters or new lines

• Improved Container Importer to better validate before trying to iterate over junk data

5.3.24 changes:

• Fixed Pilot Profile page in Phoenix - it was trying to load data for deleted Pilots instead of returning a 404

• Fixed Routes API returning server error with no ID on Validation issues, instead of validation errors themselves

• Fixed Routes API having different ‘meta’ structure than the other API endpoints

• Improved Webhook page in Orwell to better show Requests/Successes/Failures

• Fixed webhooks not sending on PIREP changes

• Improved Pilot Profile → Statistics → Route Types chart to return actual route types, not PIREP Types

Marketing Email Opt-In

5.3.23 adds Marketing module via a toggle at Orwell → Settings → vAMSYS Modules → Enable Marketing.

Once enabled, pilots can subscribe to receive marketing communications from your Virtual Airline. The Marketing System allows for GDPR compliant way for users to opt-in for such emails.

This module adds a few things:

On registration, there will be a checkbox to opt-in to marketing messages.

In Phoenix -> My Profile -> Preferences the Marketing Communications opt-in can also be toggled.

To help inform your existing pilots of the marketing communications, a dismissable alert will be shown for All Pilots who have not opted in or dismissed the alert.

Finally, a Marketing section in Orwell will list all the pilots who have opted in, together with some stats, export and Usage Guidelines

Following Usage Guidelines is non negotiable;

Other Changes

• Rewritten Route API to be more robust and less error prone

• Fixed a Typo in Discord Settings in Orwell

• Added checkbox to agree to vAMSYS ToS on registration

• Fixed stale cache in Route Importer causing issues with adding routes to airports which were just created

• Fixed departure and arrival conversions when creating/updating routes via Importer or API

• Fixed Discord notification errors and badge awarding on PIREP accept

• Fixed foreach on null error in email template processing, especially when handling Pending Registrations

• Fixed missing departure airport error in Dispatch table, when coming from Activity page

• Fixed Jumpseat Airports not forced on when there are no onward destinations from current location

• Added Jumpseat button to Dispatch table

• Fixed Container creation when creating a new container via Route Create/Edit page

• Fixed an issue with Rejecting Pilot Registration, not removing the rejected entry from the table

• Fixed SimBrief Pax/Bag weight conversions/override when said override is done via SimBrief Airframe Profile

• Fixed Activity registration button being visible outside of specified registration start and end times

• Fixed an issue where fetching current weather runs into an error

• Fixed orphaned ranks set as transfer rank targets causing issues

• Improved ‘Airports’ section in Tour Activity page showing airport names of yet to be revealed legs

• Fixed include_statistics parameter being ignored in List Pilots API endpoint

• Improved Event type Activity page load performance

• Fixed Event type Activity page Map and Route table ignoring callsign and fleet restrictions

There are still a few bugs left to resolve - will tackle them and more Could be Improved posts tomorrow!

Maintenance update resolving some bugs:

• Fix: Pilot API search via discord ID was not working

• Fix: Applying Route Type filters was causing issues when trying to make a Dispatch

• Fix: Time Setter in Dispatch would throw an error if time was not entered by the user; Current time is now populated by default

• Potential Fix: Route Importer, when set to import departure or arrival times as local times, would fail parsing and import the times as UTC, not local

• Fix/Improvement: Route Importer handles large amount of fleets and/or repeating fleets better/faster and no longer times out, which would result in import jobs looping and creating duplicate routes

• Fix/Improvement: Route Importer handles large amount of containers and/or repeating containers better/faster and no longer times out, which would result in import jobs looping and creating duplicate routes

For the last 2 - our test subject was 986 route import - each route containing 81 fleets; Import was done Friday during peak time, when our worker is most busy - Import time reduced from ~50 minutes to ~2 minutes.

Maintenance update addressing some issues:

• Improvement - Changed remaining RadarBox mentions to AirNav Radar.

• Improvement - Removed e-mail field when adding staff member; It is now a searchable dropdown to pick a Pilot in the VA; This resolves the issue of incorrect emails or users not having a pilot account in the VA.

• Fix - Show Paths in Pilot Flight map had no effect; The data will now correctly reload after paths were enabled.

• Fix - SimBrief format validation rules were being called incorrectly in Fleet and Route APIs and causing errors.

Maintenance release addressing various issues and making some improvements:

• Improvement: Stabilized Approach Scorer does not list 0 scores in PIREP Scores list; Showing 0 Scores can be re-enabled via Scorer setup toggle

• Fix: Search error in Scoring Rules Overview

• Improvement: Scoring Group edit page opens Scoring Rules first, instead of allocated Fleets

• Improvement: Show Pilot Location Airport Identifier in Statistics boxes in Phoenix Dashboard

• Improvement: Customizable inactivity removal messages with markdown support shown in Registration Denied page when pilot attempts to re-register

• Improvement: Added multi-select support for map filters to enable filtering by multiple fleets, flight types, Operators

• Improvement: Various changes to power our Discord Bot v2

• Improvement: N+1 Query optimization for the clock component which can slow things down considerably when there are many hubs

• Fix: Typo in the Activity Routes table

• Fix: Webhook event selection box on edit would misbehave

• Fix: Restoring a Pilot account via Orwell would not remove the self deleted flag and would result in pilot being deleted again

• Fix: Route Departure/Arrival Time scorers were processing times incorrectly and not applying any points

• Fix: API error related to route creation

• Improvement: Increased performance in logbook recalculation when Tour, Roster or Curated Roster is edited

Maintenance release addressing reported bugs:

• Pilot Invite allowed adding decimal numbers; Only integers are allowed

• Destination/Book Flight maps showed deleted operators and hidden fleets

• Aircraft Fleet change was referencing old relationship and would throw error on fleet change

• Callsign generator string or array parsing between turbo/non turbo mode would cause issues when creating next or return

• API issues related to fleets due to combined DTO

• Multiple Flights Per day scorer did not look at the pirep on blocks time, but instead - current time

• Selecting Landing rate would reprocess PIREP without resetting normal scorer points awarded as bonus points

Finished migration of maps-v2 to maps-v5 with final 2 maps rebuilt:

• Curated Roster map in Curated Roster table in Phoenix

• Pilot Flight Map in Pilot Profile

Fixed some other bugs or made adjustments based on discoveries made and reportd by the users:

• Orwell SimBrief Profile import error when incorrect profile ID is entered.

• Resource/Document page did not take into account honorary rank seting when opening the page - it would show in navigation, but the page would not open.

• Changed Orwell Route filters to be more like PIREP filters

MTOW/MLW Scorer Changes

It’s a breaking change; Existing MTOW and MLW Scorers were removed.

[Image: ]

• Bound enforcement can be configured from both, only over or only under

• Weight Source can be configured between SimBrief (planned) or Structural.Structural MTOW and MLW weights are taken from Aircraft → SimBrief Overrides and, if not available, from Fleet → SimBrief Overrides.

• Removed unnescessary Under/Over value limits.

Taxi Overspeed Scorer & AutoReject

[Image: ]

Added Scorer to Penalise Taxi Overspeed events (or reward for no overspeeding)

• Evaluation can be done on All events (i.e. total time spent in taxi overspeed condition) or one event (i.e. maximum allowed overspeed for one overspeed event)

• Rule name and points configurable for each scoring type

AutoReject can be configured to perform action on PIREP with similar configuration options.

Pegasus v2 operates on fixed taxi speed maximum of 30kts and this cannot be currently changed.

Other Scorer & AutoReject Changes:

• Shared Cockpit Scorer can now be set to add points as Bonus Points instead of regular points.

• Engine Start Sequence scoring rules gained the options to:

• Flap Scoring Rules can now be configured to accept ‘Human’ values; For compatible addons, Pegasus v2 will record Flap position in human value - for example -

  "UP", "0", "DIAL-A-FLAP", "6°", "11°", "0", "1", "1+F", "2", "3", "FULL" and so on; These values can now be used to configure the scorer, eliminating inconsistencies between flap levels among addons of the same aircraft type.

• All AutoRejects which have Type Override option have gained an option to provide custom rule name which will be shown in the PIREP review.

• Added Scoring Rules Overview table under Scoring Groups; It shows all the configured rules, the Scoring Groups it’s enabled in and has an option to delete the scoring rule from selected scoring groups.

Departures in next x hours

[Image: ]

[Image: ]

[Image: ]

Added an option to enable Departures in next x hours filtering via Orwell → Settings → Booking & Dispatch.

VAs can configure this to their needs with custom min/max times; For the options to be available, Route Times must be enabled and populated.

Other fixes and changes:

• Improved flight dispatch page loading speed (VAMSYS-D, VAMSYS-2F)

• Improved airport information loading speed

• Fixed broken links throughout the system

• Added validation to prevent invalid callsigns and flight numbers (VAMSYS-1DP)

• Fixed Discord integration errors when airline data is missing

• Fixed email errors when sending pilot removal notifications (VAMSYS-1DQ)

• Prevented system from sending emails to deleted user accounts (VAMSYS-1CZ)

• Fixed live flights display errors

• Fixed errors when accessing routes with invalid IDs (VAMSYS-1CB)

• Fixed background job errors when restoring pilot accounts (VAMSYS-AF)

• Fixed errors when generating route callsigns

• mproved system performance when loading activity history (VAMSYS-1DH)

• Improved error messages when Discord authorization is denied

• Fixed errors from outdated statistics data

• Improved error tracking and reporting system

Converted 3 more Event related maps to our new map arhitecture;

Converted Orwell Airport map to the new map architecture;

1 more map remains - the My Profile flight map.

Known issues:

• Book Flight, Available Destination and Live Flight Maps have interactivity issues in iOS devices - iPhones and iPads; We are still investigating cause of this issue;

And to think it was 5.3.10 ~48 hours ago.

New Scorers:

• On-Time Route Departure

• Missed Route Departure Time

• On-Time Route Arrival

• Missed Route Arrival Time

Similar to the previous Booking time scorers, but these are based on the VA populated route departure and arrival times.

With 5.3.15 Route Departure and Arrival times must now be entered in UTC:

[Image: ]

For the VAs who chose to enter these times in Local timezone - after convering to UTC (manually, via Export/Import or API) - you can enable ‘Show Local Route Times’ setting in Orwell → Settings → Booking & Dispatch → Dispatch Functions

[Image: ]

When enabled, Route tables will list the ETD and ETA in Local time, with hover revealing UTC:

[Image: ]

Route table filters will filter in Local time as well, Dispatch page will also show local time.

Thrice in 24 hours; Tackling some of the low hanging fruit from Featurebase suggestions:

• Changed - PIREP Filter in Orwell to use Select field in Departure/Arrival Filters

• New - Preparations for vAMSYS-wide notification of Pegasus v2 once v1 is shut

• New - Added Shared Cockpit information in Takeoff/Landing message sent in Discord

• Changed - In Airport Setup in Orwell, changed maximum container count in select to 500

• New - Redesigned Login, Register and similar pages

• Changed - PIREP pages now have a bullet point list of triggered AutoRejects

• New - Aircraft Resource Page in Phoenix - Added links to tracker websites for aircraft registration; Only shows tracker services enabled for dispatch page

• New - Added Updated column in Airport Resource table in Phoenix and Orwell

New - Stabilzed Approach Criteria at Altitude Gates Scorer - in BETA

See documentation for it here.

It is a Beta scorer - there may be errors or issues - our recommendation is to set it up to your liking and set point rewards/deductions to 0 during testing so that pilots are not affected in case of issues;

Another good idea would be to set up the rules and then go over some of the already filed Pegasus v2 PIREPs (you can easily tell them apart by the presence of G value in said column in PIREP table in Orwell) to test if it works as you expect.

Please report all issues regarding the scorer to Featurebase Bugs. Thank you.

Small update to assist VAs migrating from FPM to G only scoring; Currently, FPM and G landing scorers will be applied to Pegasus v2 PIREPs.

If your plan is to migrate to G only scoring and you do not wish to apply FPM scorers to Pegasus v2 PIREPs - there is a temporary setting in Orwell → Settings → Reward Settings

[Image: ]

Pegasus v2 Landing Scorer - G Only - once enabled, it will not apply FPM scorer on Pegasus v2 PIREPs.

This toggle will go away by 1st November - giving you ample time to remove FPM scorer from the scoring groups if you wish not to keep FPM based rewards.

Additional Autoreject and Scorer options added:

AutoRejects:

• Liftoff Roll Excessive - Triggers when the aircraft roll magnitude during liftoff exceeds acceptable limits.

• Liftoff Pitch Excessive - Triggers when the maximum aircraft pitch during liftoff is outside acceptable limits.

• Takeoff Above MTOW - Triggers when takeoff weight exceeds the Maximum Takeoff Weight (MTOW) from SimBrief plus tolerance.

• Landing Above MLW - Triggers when landing weight exceeds the Maximum Landing Weight (MLW) from SimBrief plus tolerance.

Scorers:

• Liftoff Pitch Outside Range

• Liftoff Pitch Within Range

• Liftoff Roll Outside Range

• Liftoff Roll Within Range

• Takeoff Weight Outside MTOW

• Takeoff Weight Within MTOW

• Landing Weight Outside MLW

• Landing Weight Within MLW

All MTOW/MLW scorers and autorejects require a SimBreif OFP dispatched via vAMSYS or imported prior to flight.

We are happy to announce that Pegasus v2 is going public.

There are some mandatory actions Virtual Airlines need to take - we cover them in Pegasus v2 Launch | Your Actions Needed notice in Orwell. Please login to your Orwell Dashboard and execute as soon as you can - within the next 7 days.

[Image: ]

Pegasus Changes

Pegasus v2 is a complete rebuild and shares very little with v1. Major improvements:

• Improved layout - less bulky, just as intuitive.

• Flap Detection - for most aircraft we will now also have accurate Flap value name - i.e. Flaps value of 2 will be shown as Flaps 15 and so on.

• Improved FSUIPC stability - our interface with FSUIPC changed to be more stable and less error prone; Users are still urged not to run Pegasus/FSUIPC/Sim as admin - if they do - they then need to run everything as admin.

• MSFS 2024 Support - we now correctly detect liveries used in MSFS 2024.

• Landing Rate G-force - we now also record and detect G force on landing, sampled at 40Hz

• Improved runway turnoff and taxi start detection on landing

• Expanded landing summary messages

• Many other changes too on a new solid foundation which we will expand in the future.

vAMSYS 5.3.10 - Map Changes

We have rewritted Available Destinations, Book Flight, Live Flights, Booking and PIREP maps on our new architecture;

This has added tons of new interactivity, improved filtering and a host of other features.

It is best if you explore these 4 maps yourself to see the differences and changes; The 3 key maps - Book Flight, Live Flights and Available Destinations also have a helper modal which will show on the first load to brief you on the new maps;

We will upgrade the remaining maps over the course of the year;

Orwell → Important Notices

[Image: ]

We have added Important Notices section to Orwell, to higlight important changes, breaking changes or any other important information one needs to be aware of; In essence, it replaces/supplements our Discord Announcements.

Statistics Rewrites

As part of our ongoing efforts to streamline vAMSYS operation, we were optimising our database queries for maximum performance. Everything to do with statistics generation were proving to be a bottleneck. With 5.3.9 we have addressed it by completely changing how statistics are stored and calculated.

They are now real-time everywhere, including Leaderboards.

This required an update to Pilot Profile and Phoenix Dashboard Statistics modules:

[Image: ]

[Image: ]

Changing tabs will load the revelant data for said tab.

In Phoenix Dashboard, the Details tab was replaced with the link to Pilot Profile.

Leaderboard Changes

[Image: ]

Leaderboards (Phoenix → Community → Leaderboard) has been completely rewritten to utilise our changes to the max.

It is now one table; At the top - you can change between various leaderboard types enabled by the VA:

[Image: ]

The Leaderboard has tab toggles for various time periods and Sort By selectors.

Most importantly, the Leaderboard is now not limited to 20 people - you can see exactly where you are in the table, as well as in the blue summary box.

And finally, a feature suggested more than 8 years ago is also finally in - the Change column, showing how position in the leaderboard changed period to period.

API Changes

With the changes to statistics, it is now time to speed up migration to API v3 and retire old APIs - we posted a note about this in the Orwell Dashboard.

API v3 has a breaking change where /operations/statistics endpoint has been retired; For a short period of time /operations/statistics-legacy is available.

Pilots can now automatically lookup and select which aircraft flew their route recently using real-world FlightRadar24 data.

Airline Admins

This feature can be enabled/disabled in: Orwell → Settings → Booking & Dispatch → Dispatch Extras → Enable FR24 Aircraft Lookup

How It Works

When booking a flight, click the "Lookup from FR24" button next to the aircraft selector. The system will:

1. Query FlightRadar24 for recent flights matching your flight number

2. Find the most recently landed aircraft's registration

3. Automatically select that aircraft (if present)

Querying the Flight Radar data is done by your browser, not our servers

Where to Find It

The FR24 lookup button appears in two locations:

• Aircraft Picker modal - When initially selecting an aircraft

• Dispatch Details section - The main aircraft dropdown after initial selection

Privacy & Technical Details

The aircraft lookup is performed directly by your web browser, not by vAMSYS servers. When you click the lookup button:

• Your browser contacts FlightRadar24 (FR24 sees your personal IP address)

• You receive the flight data

• Your browser sends the response back to vAMSYS for setting the selector field

✅ Respects your current fleet filters and availability restrictions

✅ Prioritizes fresh data, falls back to historical cache if API is unavailable

✅ Shows clear notifications:

• Success: "Found [registration] and auto-selected"

• Not Available: "Found [registration] but it's not available in your fleet" (aircraft exists but is filtered out, already booked, or not in your fleet)

• Not Found: "No recent flights found for this flight number"

• Orwell - Rewards → Scoring Groups → Scoring Group. Added option to copy individual scoring rules to other Scoring Groups

• Orwell - Pilots → List:

• Orwell - Routes → Routes:

• Orwell - Data → Exports:

• Phoenix - Dispatch Table and Dispatch Page:

• Phoenix - Documents → Scores - Scoring Groups ordered by name of the group.

• PIREP Processor: Fixed an issue where PIREPs would get stuck in Scoring when a badge is to be awarded and it does not have an image.

• Airport Briefing URL - 255 character limit removed

Small maintenance update:

• Improvement: Rutes in Orwell can now be sorted by ID

• Fix: Some Activities, in the activities page listing only 1 route when multiple are available.

• Fix: Route Create/Update error in API

• Fix: Bonus Sum calculation error for statistics

• Fix: Bonus Point rewards for Activities which should not have rewarded points

• Fix: Badge award Discord Notification

• Fix: PIREP Bonus Point editor throwing error when PIREP has no existing bonus points.