Changelog

This changelog will be updated as things are added to 5.3.3

• Orwell: PIREP Table received individual and bulk actions for Accept/Reject/Invalidate/Reprocess as appropriate.

• Orwell: AutoReject rules table now shows vAMSYS Rule name as well as your configured rule name.

• Phoenix: Dispatch Table (via Book Flight Map when multiple routes are available for city pair or directly via Book Flight From […]) - added drop-down to VA Enabled flight trackers light FR24, AirNav, FlightAware and route edit page in Orwell.

• Phoenix/Orwell: Paused Airborne time had an erroneous nm notation next to time.

• Phoenix: Fix a Discord notification related error when filing a claim.

• Internal: Updated ban message when user is banned by vAMSYS Robot when multiple accounts are detected.

• Orwell: Fix PIREP Reprocessing will erroneusly award points for activities which are set to only reward once and there already exists another PIREP which got the activity points;

• Improved: PIREP Reprocessing logic towards activity logbook for Tours/Rosters/Curated rosters; On reprocess it will do a better reconstruction of logbook to see if we can rebuild the logbook to be as complete as possible given the PIREPs pilot has filed in relation to activity settings. This also handles the cases of removing PIREP and related PIREPs from activity logbook if the PIREP reprocessed (and related PIREPs in the logbook) no longer meet activity requirements.

• Phoenix: Fix Pilot configured SimBrief OFP layout was not taken into account when generating OFP or Preview.

• Phoenix: Fix Book Additional Flight Map filters having values based on current pilot location and not on destinations available from previously booked arrival airport.

New Scorers and AutoRejects

• Scorer: Pushback Fuel Outside Planned Range - Deducts points when pushback fuel is outside SimBrief planned ramp fuel ± tolerance range provided.

• Scorer: Pushback Fuel Within Planned Range - Awards points when pushback fuel is within SimBrief planned ramp fuel ± tolerance range provided.

• AutoReject: Pushback Fuel Outside Planned Range - triggers autoreject action when pushback fuel is outside SimBrief planned ramp fuel ± tolerange range provided. Has fleet overrides.

• Scorer: Takeoff Fuel Outside Planned Range - Deducts points when takeoff fuel is outside SimBrief planned takeoff fuel ± tolerance range provided.

• Scorer: Takeoff Fuel Within Planned Range - Awards points when takeoff fuel is within SimBrief planned takeoff fuel ± tolerance range provided.

• AutoReject: Takeoff Fuel Outside Planned Range - triggers autoreject action when takeoff fuel is outside SimBrief planned takeoff fuel ± tolerange range provided. Has fleet overrides.

• Scorer: Landing Fuel Below Reserve - Landing with fuel below SimBrief final reserve.

• Scorer: Landing Fuel Above Reserve - Landing with fuel above SimBrief final reserve.

• AutoReject: Landing Fuel Below Reserve - Landing with fuel below SimBrief final reserve.

• Scorer: Touchdown Pitch Outside Range - Deduct points when touchdown pitch is outside specified min and max angle.

• Scorer: Touchdown Pitch Within Range - Award points when touchdown pitch is within specified min and max angle.

• AutoReject: Touchdown pitch angle is excessive - Action triggered when touchdown pitch angle is outside safe operational limits.

• Scorer: Touchdown Roll Outside Range - Deduct points when touchdown roll is outside specified max angle.

• Scorer: Touchdown Roll Within Range - Award points when touchdown roll is within specified max angle.

• AutoReject: Touchdown roll angle is excessive - Action triggered when touchdown roll angle indicates potential wingtip/engine strike.

• AutoRejects: 4 autorejects for Softer/Heavier landing for G rates (for Pegasus v2 users)

• AutoRejects: 4 autorejects for Softer/Heavier landing for FPM or G rate.

• Scorer: Graduated Landing (G) - similar to FPM counterpart, provides scoring rules for landing G Force.

Destination Map

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• Added Cloud Layers for low, mid, high and total cloud coverage

• Added Visibility overlay

Beta is available at https://beta.vamsys.io

A little update from the seaside:

• Fixed dependency issues preventing automatic updating of AIRAC cycle; Starting with AIRAC 2510 there should be no need for any manual intervention for the cycle to update.

• Added AIRAC cycle information box in Orwell Dashboard under vAMSYS Links & Information so you’re always aware which cycle is loaded into vAMSYS.

It’s time for our first update to 5.3 and this one packs a punch!

Bug Fixes

• PIREP Time not getting calculated on 5.3 launch

• Live Flight List not being generated for VAs in trial version

• Fix filters not being applied correctly to Dispatch Page when attempting to book via Activities

• Fix Activity markers not showing in Book Flight Map

• Fix popup persistence issue when markers rebuild after zoom

• Fix ETE indicator alignment in destination map timeline

• Fix being unable to delete pilot account via Orwell Pilot View

• Fix PIREP map refusing to draw when there are position reports with extreme negative altitude values

• Fix some route-model binding issues with API routes for Fleet and Containers

• Fixed broken Paused Percent autoreject - it was looking for variable which did not exist

• Fixed an issue with notification showing that simbrief is unavailable in Dispatch Page even though user has no linked SimBrief account

• Fixed related issue to flight information not loading in dispatch page for repositioning flights when user has no linked SimBrief Account

• Fixed error codes not being shared in API requests when they fail

• Fixed 504 errors when trying to leave comments on a PIREP Claim

Destination Map

Our 5.3 release rewrote all the map code and added some eye candy and weather layers; With 5.3.1 we are taking things it a bit further. Whilst attempting to add more weather overlays to Destinations Map, we’ve uncovered very poor performance and - instead of trying to fix it - we’e decided it’s better to rewrite a rewrtite.

So there we have it - a brand new Destination Map:

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You will find that it’s very familiar - it’s the same airports after all, but under the hood - it’s all very different. Since all our maps have a lot of interactivity, we’ve simply outgrew raw typescript/javascript and opted for Vue as the framework to manage it all; Whilst at it - replaced the mapping engine from mapbox to maplibre. Result - a better performing map with more features

Filters

First thing you’re bound to notice is that the map is ‘bigger’ - we removed the filter row on top of the map and shrunk the footer to give the map more room. Filters now live in top-right corner.

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Sidebar

Most of the magic is in the sidebar:

• Departure and Arrival airport boxes are clickable which will open the search for available airports

• Reverse lookup - want to see arrival routes into an airport? Enter arrival airport and leave departure airport empty - Destination Map will enter ‘Reverse’ mode

• Swap Airports - a button to swap between arrival and departure airports

• New weather layers - surface level wind gust overlay

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Lastly - you should find the map quicker to load and quicker to apply filters; Airport to airport ‘navigation’ is also improved as we pre-load airport connection mappings, so no more need to wait for destinations to load when you click the marker.

Hope you find the reverse mode useful!

New PIREP Scorers

With 5.3.1 we are also bringing new and improved PIREP Scorers:

• Arrival / Departure

• Landing Rate Autorejects can now have fleet overrides

• Added conditional engine warmup logic, if enabled:

• Approach Flaps Set/Not Set - award/deduct points if flaps were not set to acceptable level for landing.

World Clock

The clock on the top-right hand side in both Orwell and Phoenix now has a dropdown:

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It shows the current UTC time (like the topbar) - your local time as well as the time at your pilots location.

Virtual Airline speficied hubs are grouped by timezone and listed as well.

What’s next?

The plan is to update Book Flight map to the new engine with 5.3.2; Pegasus v2 is still on the horizon for initial release in first half of September; And we plan to start work on Hangar v2 in earnest this September as well.

But for now - it’s time for summer holiday - we are away till 9th of September - ticket replies, bug fixes and/or replies to your featurebase posts will take longer than usual.

vAMSYS 5.3 represents a massive leap forward in functionality, performance, and developer capabilities. This release brings a number of firsts for vAMSYS - a comprehensive API, real-time weather systems, and powerful webhook integrations.

Map Rewrite

All maps - be it in Phoenix or Orwell have been completely rewritten to be more modular and easier to work with in the future.

This work has nicely lent itself to adding some things we wanted for quite a while - weather radar.

Book Flight and Available Destination maps have wind overlays on several flight levels, including a timeline scrubber for full 24 hour forecast across the entire world.

Map rewrite also means we can enable full SPA-like navigation across all pages on vAMSYS - no more annoying white flashes when navigating from page to page in dark mode.

Pilot Flight Map

Your flight history Map available via My Profile → Map has seen performance improvements as well as ability to draw flight paths with gradients

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Be mindful that large datasets can take a little while to load.

Live Flights

Live Flight map (Flight Centre → Flight Map) has new filters for airports, aircraft and online network; The sidebar is more modern and clean and, in addition to already familiar flight path - we not also show planned route line and waypoints.

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Other Maps

All the maps with a sidebar (Book Flight, Flight Map, Available Destinations) have new sleek sidebars; all maps feature improved hover popups for more information.

There are probably still a bug or two hiding in these - if you come across anything unusual be sure to esclate so it can be worked on.

API and Webhooks

The primary Focus of 5.3 release was the API; For the first time in our rather long history, we have an incredible Operations API, replicating most of the functions achievable via Orwell.

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Do have a look at Orwell → HQ → Settings → API section for the new API as well as link to the documentation detailing all our API endpoints.

What’s next for 5.3

With the release of 5.3.0 the rest of the week will be taking in your feedback and resolving any bugs - with 5.3.1 planned for Friday morning, save for any hotfix we need to push, but that will be under 5.3.0 release moniker.

API v3 is not fully complete yet - the Operations API will receive Activity Management endpoints and we will start work on Pilots API, which will enable API integrators to perform actions on Pilot behalf - like making bookings.

Further vAMSYS 5.3 updates will also see introduction of new weather map overlays - clouds, rain, thunderstorms. Lastly - at the start of September we hope to relase Pegasus v2 - there’s plenty to look forward to there as well.

Acknowledgements

This massive release wouldn't have been possible without the feedback and support from our virtual airline community. Special thanks to all beta testers who made sure 5.3 release is not completely broken :)

• Various changes, tweaks and additions for Pegasus v2 Log parsing

• Fixed Route SB Options not being taken into account correctly when dispatching

• Fixed Create & Create another save issue in Activities

• Added Route Tag columns in PIREP tables in Phoenix and Orwell

• Fixed TAF processing internally

• Fixed old references to fuel configuration on Routes

• Added more Alternate Fields in Routes, including export/import

Changes to handle Pegasus v2 livery reporting

• Adjusted Log Line Parser to accept/understand Aircraft, Aircraft Type, Addon and Livery

• Adjusted Livery Name detection autoreject to store new values, integrate with (as much as possible) existing liveries whilst not throwing them for new review and converting to new format

• In Liveries table in Orwell:

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• In Livery View page in Orwell:

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• Changes to Livery Review Process:

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• PIREP Review Changes:

• Removed PIREP ID from Phoenix Dashboard PIREP/Booking boxes; It’s not really needed and sometimes causes linebreak issues.

• Added a new Discord Notification for when a Badge is awarded.

• Added a new DIscord Notification for when a PIREP goes into Review.

• Fixed the missing youtube link introduced in Pilot Profile in 5.2.16

• New: Social Links can have ‘Discord Integration’ enabled - provided VA has set up vAMSYS Discord Bot; Users who have linked their Discord accounts with vAMSYS will be able to join VAs discord (with correct username) by clicking the Social Icon/Link; In other cases, the specified discord URL is shown;

• Fixes to PIREP View Pages for some old PIREPs where the Airline Airport has since been deleted

• Added PIREP ID and Simulator to the Pending Livery Review Table

• Discord Activity Notifications now include Activity Image

Release focused mainly on internal optimizations:

• New Flight List/Map Generation

  Reworked how Flight List/Map is generated to be more efficient

• New Weather System

  Reworked how our Weather system works - METARS and TAFs fetched, saved and served.

• Dispatch Table optimizations

  Reworked expensive database queries, added local caching and more to drastically improve Dispatch Table load times

• Orwell PIREP Table optimizations

  Heavily optimized Orwell PIREP Table to extract every ounce or performance via query optimization and data loading limits

Other Tweaks, Fixes and Improvements:

• Added Peter to Airline Staff generator for new VAs

• Fixed incorrect ACARS Sound descriptions for Landing and Unloading stages

• Fixed extra “ in youtube link in Pilot Profile

• Fixed ‘unresolved’ Aircraft Types in Available Destication Map

• Added Landing Rates as an optional activity restriction

• Fixed VA Routes page issue when page has rank limited components

• Fixed timeout errors when generating VATSIM Partner Compliance Report

We are treating vAMSYS 5.2.14 as ‘unstable’ and will be deploying hotfixes throughout the day as needed if issues crop up - this is due to the nature of many small changes needed for 5.2.14, some of which we may have missed.

✨ New and Updated Features

Real-time Callsign Availability Checking

• Callsign fields now show improved live availability status for VATSIM and IVAO networks

• Works during flight dispatch and booking modifications

• Includes timeout handling to prevent hanging on "Checking..." status

Staff Tools

• Added booking cancellation option for VA Staff in Orwell → Flight Centre → Bookings

Dashboard Customization

• Added option to open URLs in the same tab for Image Component items in Phoenix Dashboard

🐛 Bug Fixes and ↗️ Other Improvements

Flight Booking and Destination Maps

• Fixed filter logic where airports showed if they matched ANY filter instead of ALL filters

• Map filters now update dynamically based on other selected filters

PIREP System

• Added success notifications for PIREP accept/reject/invalidate actions

• Fixed activity registration method calls

• Fixed percentage based bonus points not correctly applying to claims due to already existing bonus point entry with 0 points

Route Importer

• Fixed airport cache query preventing proper airline scoping

• Fixed SimBrief fuel field mapping (sb_extra_fuel -> addedfuel)

• Added proper fleet validation for import operations

• Improved time parsing to handle both H:i and H:i:s formats

⚡ Performance Improvements

Database Optimization

• Eliminated N+1 queries in statistics loading and position reports

• Standardized aircraft relationship references across the system

• Added strategic eager loading to prevent redundant database calls

Flight Booking Maps

• Improved loading performance for large airport datasets

• Added 1-hour caching for event airports

• Optimized favorites handling with faster lookup methods

🔧 Technical Changes

Code Refactoring

• Consolidated duplicate callsign checking code into reusable service

• Normalized aircraft type/fleet relationship naming throughout application

• Updated 65+ files to use consistent relationship patterns

Permissions

• Moved activity email access under airline settings permission

Impact Summary

• Faster flight booking due to map performance improvements

• Reliable callsign checking across all flight dispatch scenarios

• Better user feedback with success notifications for PIREP actions

• More accurate filtering in flight booking maps

• Improved system stability through database query optimization

🎯 Route Management

Copy Route Functionality

• Added route copying in Orwell with intelligent date handling (past dates → now, future dates preserved)

• Copies all data: load factors, fleets, containers, and SimBrief overrides

Service Days Filtering

• Made service days column sortable in dispatch tables in Phoenix

• Made service days values filterable in dispatch tables in Phoenix

Route Exports

• Added AND/OR logic selector for departure and arrival airport filtering

🏢 Hub Selection Improvements

Automatic Selection

• Auto-selects hub when airline has only one hub or one airport

• Streamlined user experience for single-hub and single-airport-in-hub scenarios

🔍 Activity Improvements

Tag Filtering

• Changed tag filters from AND to OR logic in Activities and Curated Rosters in Phoenix

• Items now appear when matching ANY selected tag instead of requiring ALL tags

✈️ SimBrief Integration

Centralized Aircraft Favorite Logic

• Unified SimBrief profile selection across aircraft resource and view booking pages when favoriting aircraft

• Automatic profile preselection when favoriting aircraft based on priority: Airline → Pilot → Default profiles

🎨 VA Rules Page Improvements

Branding & SEO

• VA rules page now shows VA logo instead of vAMSYS logo

• Page is no longer indexable by search engines

📋 Dispatch Information

Enhanced Route Information Infobox

• Added route departure and arrival times

• Shows available fleets for the route

• Displays operator and ATC callsign information

• When dispatching for an Activity with Fleet Restrictions, said restrictions will show in Route Information

Aircraft Selection Improvements

• Activity fleet restrictions now properly carry over to aircraft selection in dispatch

• Added new setting in Orwell to force aircraft selection even when only one fleet is available

• Added taxi-in/taxi-out time calculation and sending to SimBrief when using Manual SimBrief from View Booking page

Load Factor Management

• Added "Enable Loaded Amount Editing" setting to load factor profiles

• When disabled, passengers, luggage, and cargo fields become read-only in dispatch

• Generated load data is still displayed to pilots for reference, but cannot be edited - only regenerated

🏆 Badge System Enhancements

PIREP Count Requirements

• Added PIREP Count field to badge types: Landing Rate, Landing Rate Between, Landing Airport, Departing Airport, and Airport badges

• Badges now require a specific number of PIREPs to be earned (default: 1 for compatibility); Editing these badges will ask you to enter the amount - you can still add 1 if that's what you desire

🚫 Autoreject System Improvements

Duplicate Message Prevention

• Fixed duplicate autoreject messages for landing rate rules

  System now shows only the most severe autoreject message when multiple landing rate rules trigger

  For excessive landings: shows heaviest (most negative) landing rate violation

  For soft landings: shows softest (most positive) landing rate violation

🔐 Authentication Improvements

Enhanced Logout Experience

• Logout now redirects to VA-specific login page and maintains VA branding consistency throughout login/logout flow

⚡ Performance Improvements

VA Select Page Optimizations

• Dramatic performance improvements for users with multiple pilot accounts

• Added Star/Unstar functionality so you are in control

• Added Search functionality

Fixes and hotfixes applied during development holiday:

• Tweak to midnight jobs dispatcher to better handle congested times - like midnight UTC

• Updates to Discord Notification dispatcher to not attempt to send discord messages to VAs which no longer have a linked Discord Server

• Fixes to internal METAR fetcher and processor to improve handling of some edge cases

• Fixes to custom Page when component width was somehow not provided

• Prevent showing Activities in Phoenix if the setup contains airports which no longer exist - in these cases, the Pilot will be returned to dashboard with a notification prompting them to alert VA so they can fix the Activity

• Attempted a fix for rare cases when Profile page will fail due to lack of Pilot Statistics

• Improved handling of 'departure_time', 'arrival_time' and 'flight_length' fields in Route Import so the import does not get stuck in a loop in edge cases where the input bypasses initial validation.

• Added more timezone fixes when using Time Helper in Dispatch to match between outdated and new timezone names reported by browser;

• Backend changes to how Public Name of the user is stored to facilitate future improvements to Flight List generation bottleneck

• Added 3 information columns in Airport export - Airport ID, ICAO and IATA;

• Fixes to ‘midnight’ job dispatcher for Activity detection, Holiday entitlement reset and Removed Pilot Digest to take into account timezone differences

• Tweaked various job dispatch times and delays as well as worker amounts to better split the load at the start of the hour when many various jobs are dispatched; This ought to lead to better database performance and decreased/eliminated timeout issues related to it;

• Pegasus CSV Generator - fixed instances where airport names will have double quotes causing issue with the CSV format;

• Fixed Route Importer not saving departure, arrival and flight length times,

• Fixed Route Importer/Exporter column names noting hhmm when the format is hh:mm;

• Added the option to remove Permanently removed flag from deleted pilots via Pilot table actions in Orwell

• Restoring pilot account will remove Permanently Removed flag from all pilot accounts

Changes as part of 5.2.13 proper:

• Added Booking Type indicator in book flight map and Dispatch Route pages;

• For special route/booking types with scoring restrictions, notice saying so has been added to Dispatch page;

• Fixed point multiplier percent not showing correctly in Activity View page in Phoenix - it will now list 200% as Points: 2x instead of Points: 200;

• Fixed Airport Importer lower-casing preferred alternate codes; Adjusted logic to handle lowercase codes in the Diversion Airport Picker;

• Fixed SimBrief dispatch referring to the old fuel units entered prior to 5.2

• Fixed Claims not moving Pilot to intended destination airport

• Fixed Claim PIREPs not showing in Phoenix Dashboard component

• Adjusted Can see Airline Statistics permission to affect Orwell Dashboard components

• Fixed incorrect permissions check on Holidays and Routes pages in Orwell

Last maintenance release - Team vAMSYS is on development holiday till 3rd July.

• Orwell and Phoenix PIREP View now lists Route ID and Booking ID

• Route Exporter will not empty out ‘AUTO’ Cost Index entries in exported CSV

• Fixed Claims not always registering as completing logbook or adding to the leg complpetion of activity logbook; For any outstanding cases, recycle claim by Rejecting and Accepting;

• Added ‘Activity Logbooks’ section in Orwell and Phoenix PIREP Review - it lists all activities this PIREP is crediting towards completion.

• Potential fix to Callsign Generator parameters throwing an error when swiching to Turbo mode in Route Create/Edit

Maintenance release.

• Fixed User Profile editor so that same online network IDs cannot be used by multiple users.

• Fixed per-leg awarded bonus points not showing up in the PIREP table

• Fixed a bug where reprocessing a PIREP which completed the activity would not add back the activity points;

• Fixed SimBrief dispatch looking at the wrong fuel values for minfob and minfod

• Fixed Custom Pages Headless components not having all components

Rank Scorer Change

Rank Point scorer added in 5.2.8 has been changed - previously created scoring rules using this scorer have been removed; Rank Point scorer now takes in multiple rank groups and associated points per rank group.

Phoenix → View Booking Updates

View Booking page received a facelift thanks to feedback of Virtual Airlines and Pilots which found it’s way to Featurebase - we thank you for your input!

Layout of how information is presented has been fully revamped and should make it easier to take in the important bits without your eyes darting from one section to the other.

Phoenix → Tour and Roster Table

Tour and Roster table, showing the activity legs has been improved and now takes into account current bookings

• Status column will show ‘Booked’ if the leg is booked; Book Flight replaced with View Booking.

• Clicking ‘Book Flight’ on next ‘Incomplete’ leg when previous leg is ‘Booked’ will not show out of sequence warning.

Orwell → Bulk Full Route Edit

A bulk action added to Orwell Route Management where one can select up to 20 routes to be edited;

The familiar route edit page will open for the first selected entry (will Turbo Mode as it’s more lightweight than the non-turbo)- once you save the edits, it will take you to the next selected route and so on;

Other Fixes and Changes

• Orwell Rank Management - fixed rank edit issue relating to using ‘Space’ as the abbreviation separator;

• Orwell Rank Management - removed Delete button from the Cadet and Staff ranks in the Rank Edit page;

• Added a safeguard in Profile views to guard against null badge images;

• Phoenix - Dispatch Table has these additional columns hidden by default:

• Route Importer - added missing route parsing

• Route Importer / Orwell → Routes → Routes - significantly improved route parser speed.

What is next?

5.2.10 finishes our first pass at clearing out ‘Could be Improved’ suggestions and is the last ‘meaty’ update;

We will continue to release hotfixes for any bugs as they come up but we do not plan on having any more updates of the size of 5.2.7 - 5.2.10 for at least 3 weeks (5th July 25) - team has some holiday time booked and we want to start chipping at v5.3 to-do list and work on Hangar 1.0;

Phoenix → Route Changes

A v3 return - but instead of pairs, we show routes - routes starting, ending, started and ended in 14 day period.

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VAs can enable it at Orwell → HQ → Settings → vAMSYS Modules

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Orwell → Route Update Guidance Change

In

Route Import/Export

we’ve updated the guidance on how to best delete routes, so they still play nice with the Route Changes in Phoenix.

Phoenix → Airline Statistics Component

Just like Pilot Statistics, VAs can now configure their Phoenix Dashboard to show Airline Statistics:

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Orwell → Staff Actions

v3 Favorite - Staff Actions log is back in PIREP Review in Orwell. It tracks PIREP state changes - be it directly in PIREP review or via Livery Review, comment additions/removals, point and bonus changes. It will only start tracking these on 5.2.9 launch and you will not see actions which took place beforethen in the action log.

VA-wide holidays

With the summer coming up, 5.2.9 added an option to set VA-wide holidays. It allows VAs to specify various date ranges when activity requirements do not apply, but pilots can still fly during it;

To be able to set it up, VA Staff, Owner Included, need Can Manage Airline Holidays permission. The holidays are managed at Orwell → Operations → Airline Holidays

More information about Airline Holidays here.

Other Changes and Fixes

• Fixed badges not awarding for completing Activity; Issue resolved and missing badges awarded;

• Manually awardable Badges can now be awarded to pilot from their Orwell Profile page;

• Phoenix Dashboard component for Events - added option to exclude tags;

• SimBrief OFP PDFs are now stored at vAMSYS enabling a much longer retention period than SimBrief.

Phoenix → My Profile

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Added Rank progression Tracker;

Phoenix → View Booking

After changes in 5.2.7 to Dispatch page, we’ve added some goodies to the View Booking Page:

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Change Booking Details

Pilots can now change their Callsign (with IVAO/VATSIM checker, like in Dispatch page), Flight Number (if changes are enabled) and the Network booked without having to redispatch the entire flight.

Manual SimBrief

Manual SimBrief option is making a return, if enabled by the VA in Orwell -> HQ -> Settings -> Booking & Dispatch -> Enable Manual SimBrief.

Manual SimBrief is the inferior option when compared to full fledged SimBrief Dispatch via Dispatch Page as it is severy limited on what information can be passed via URL; It will never be as good as the our primary integration.

There are further tweaks to make in future vAMSYS 5.2 iterations, but the initial return of this function does work and - manual SB dispatches will sync up to vAMSYS automatically, just like the changes made to the OFP when Dispatching via SimBrief.

For Manual SimBrief to be available, it needs to be enabled by the VA and the Pilot needs to have Navigraph Account linked.

View Booking Page Future

We are planning to tackle a bigger overhaul of the View Booking page, courtesy to some great feedback and sketches provided by Stu - a pilot in one of the VAs. We thank him for the effort to put this to us and you can look forward to View Booking page being a bit more organised and easier to follow.

Phoenix - Event Map Markers

Added the option to color Event and Focus Airport activity type airports red, like in v3.

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Virtual Airlines may enable it in Orwell → HQ → Settings → Booking & Dispatch → Show Event and Focus Airport Marker on Maps. The marked airports are Departure Airports only for visible Activities in Event and Focus Airport type.

Orwell → Rank Scorer

Added a new PIREP Scorer - Rank Points. When enabled, will award set points for pilots having selected ranks.

Orwell → PIREPs Count Badge

Added two more fields - Callsign and Route Tags to further narrow down who the badge is awarded to.

Orwell → Booked Aircraft Highlight

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Added additional options in Orwell → HQ → Settings → Booking & Dispatch for highlighting booked aircraft in Dispatch.

Orwell → Discord Settings

Added Discord notifications for Activities - similar to how Alerts and NOTAMs work.

Phoenix → Other Changes

• Event Page for Tours/Rosters - remove ‘Airport’ and ‘International’ from airport names from legs table so it all fits into table without sideways scrolling; For international ‘Airport’ and ‘International’ equivalents VAs should remove them from their airport names as they are superflous and just take up the space.

• Fixed Curated Rosters not expiring.

• Added ‘Only where I am Registered’ toggles in Event and Curated Roster filters.

Orwell → Other Changes

• Added Badge description in the table in Phoenix when viewing badge recipients.

• When Accepting PIREP Claims, it will no longer override any manually entered points or bonus points

• Point and Bonus Point presets were using Preset name in points, not the ‘Content’

Next Up

5.2.8 has a bit shorter changelog than 5.2.7 and there are many things which did not make it to 5.2.8 today. You can see a full list of things we want to tackle for 5.2.9 onwards here.

Clearing out Could be Improved backlog today with small tweaks to iron out some rough edges and improve existing functionality.

Phoenix → Flight Dispatch

5.2.6, as requested by our VA Customers, added foolproof way to ensure the correct fleet/aircraft is selected when making a booking - this is to protect pilots against disappointment when they book wrong aircraft and then get their PIREP rejected/invalidated.

5.2.7 adds the option for VAs to revert back to how 5.2 was prior to 5.2.6 and let the dispatcher select a random aircraft. Setting is located in Orwell → HQ → Settings → Booking & Dispatch → Dispatch Functions → Require Explicit Aircraft Selection.

Aditionally, Users who feel confident and don’t want the extra handholding, can enable bypass setting in Phoenix → My Profile → Account Settings → Global Preferences → Bypass Explicit Aircraft Selection.

Furthermore, Explicit Aircraft Selection functionality is further improved - when only 1 fleet is available, revert to old logic and pick aircraft from favorites, then at random;

Other Changes:

• Dispatch via SimBrief toggle moved to Dispatch Details section in Dispatch

• SimBrief Airframe Profile and Update Airframes sections moved to Dispatch Details section in Dispatch

• SimBrief settings fieldset moved out of parent Flight Options

• Flight Options moved above Payload

Phoenix → Pilot Profile

• Changed it so pilot profile link cannot be opened when logged in at another VA.

• Removed PIREP Comments section from public profile to be in line with public PIREP view where we do not show comments and treat them as private.

• Added Copy Profile URL to pilots profile page so they can get a shareable link should they wish.

Phoenix → PIREP Comments

• Migrated 5.0 PIREP comments to 5.2 - something we forgot to do after 5.2 launch;

• Removed all PIREP comments made prior to 5.0; Migration issue to 5.0 caused comments to be incorrectly attributed and there is no way to fix that now.

Phoenix / Orwell

PIREP Processing

• As part of PIREP processing, if booking was made to be flown on VATSIM/IVAO and no flight activity was found on the network, the booking network will be force set to offline. Similarly, if booking was made offline and we detect IVAO/VATSIM activity - it will set the appropriate network.

Badges

• Badge sections in profile edited to that images fall in the middle

• Badge sections in profile now show Badge Name in addition to when it was awarded

• Badge items in profile now link to the badge page in Phoenix

• PIREPs - Count in Fleet badge type is now retired

• PIREPs - Count, PIREPs - Landing Rate, PIREPs - Landing Airport, PIREPs - Departing Airport, PIREPs - Arriving or Departing Airport, Flight Length and Flight Distance badges have additional, optional options:

• PIREPs - Landing Rate badge has additional, optional Airports field. If entered, badge will look for the specified landing rate at the specified airports.

• PIREPs - Landing Airport Runway Badge type added. Rewards set number of arrivals at specified airport and specified runway. Can only have 1 airport, but multiple runways are allowed. Do note, that runway tracking started with PIREPs filed in 5.2 - previous PIREPs do not have this information.

• PIREPs - Landing Rate Between Badge type added. Will award badge if landing rate is between min and max specified.

Orwell → ACARS Sounds

• Sounds are only played when route type is Scheduled or Charter.

• Sounds can be uploaded on Fleet. Fleet sounds will selectively override default ACARS Sounds - i.e. if default sound for Unloading exists in Airline and one is uploaded on Fleet - the fleet sound will play; If default sound for unloading is not set in Airline and one is uploaded on Fleet - fleet sound will play; If default sound for unloading is set in Airline and no unloading sound is set on Fleet - Airline sound will play.

• Multiple sounds can now be uploaded for each type - one will be selected at random.

Orwell → Staff Permissions

Important - please re-check and reapply ‘Can See PIREPs & Claims’ and ‘Can Manage Callsign Parameter Settings’ permissions, as some staff may be missing it as of 5.2.7.

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Furthermore, clarified some permission descriptions and names; added granular permissions for each importer/exporter combo - all users with Can Use Exporters/Importers permission have access to all Importers/Exporters enabled to replicate functionality of vAMSYS prior to 5.2.7. VA Owners and other staff with revelant permission can now change what access each Staff member has.

Orwell → Bookings → VATSIM VA Partner Compliance Export

Fixed how this exporter works - it would hang if it cannot produce 60 flights from 20 different pilots. It will now more reliably output the data we have, even if it is not enough to meet VATSIM requirements.

Orwell → Rewards → Ranks

Made some additions to combat creative ways VAs keep finding to delete initial ranks; Added rank change sync to Hangar.

Orwell → Discord Notifications

Ever since 5.0, there were issues with @everyone mentions as is not a real but contrived role, yet Discord treats it as a regular role and provides a unique role_id for each server; To mention @everyone we cannot pass @ , yet for every other role mention - we do; We had issues identifying whether the role is everyone or not. This has now been addressed and the notification messages will mention everyone without double @@ .

Orwell → CSS

Booked Flight Flag classname change

If you are overriding booked-aircraft-flag CSS class, 5.2.7 renames it to bookedAircraftFlag as it was causing an issue with search and was the cause of this issue.

Unordered list

Added default CSS to add bullet points to unordered lists resolving this issue.

Orwell → Activity Edit Bug

Fixed an issue when editing an existing tour it would expect aircraft id, resolving this issue; And this issue regarding award type.

Orwell → Navigation Tweak

As requested in Discrod, Phoenix and Hangar links in Orwell were moved to the bottom of the navigation, closer to what we had in 5.0 and replicating Phoenix layout.

Orwell → Activity → Order of Operations

Changed when Removed Pilot Digest is sent - it is now sent after that days pilot removals, not before - removing the 24 hour delay of email data.

Phoenix → Other Tweaks

• Clicking on event in Phoenix Dashboard will no longer open a new tab.

• Removed all dynamic labels - that’s Show/Hide Jumpseat in Booking Map, Show/Hide Flight Paths in Profile → Map, as well as all privacy toggles in Account Settings → Global Preferences. The label clearly indicates what happens when it’s toggled on as opposed to the status it has.

• Changed how pilots profile is accessed by simplifying the URL

• Added ‘Share my profile link’ to profile page

Orwell → Other Tweaks

• Added hidden by default ID field in Aircraft table, so search can be done by ID.

• Removed all dynamic labels, There was only 1 in Orwell → Activity Unlimited Participation when working on Activities.

• When creating Route, ‘Start Same’ and ‘Start Return’ save options will pre-populate route type field.

• Added option to mark PIREP as needing reply when leaving a comment in Orwell.

• Alerts now have a selection to display in Phoenix or Pegasus - both or either.

• Added Staff Action Count in Select VA Page next to Orwell button

Dispatch Changes

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Dispatching a flight now requires pilot to actively select the aircraft they are booking; This will eliminate all the cases of ‘I did not check what I was dispatching’ and ending up filing a PIREP against wrong Fleet.

As with the Aircraft Picker available previously, the selection can be quickly made from Favorited Aircraft or all available aircraft for the route, optionally narrowed down by fleet.

Other Changes

• Fixed Activity Image showing up erroneusly on Curated Roster Activity Type

• Fixed Container synchronisation on Route Importer

• Added dark image to Activities

• Added missing Whitelist action to pilot table when only initial activity requirements are enabled

• Adjusted PIREP View page when Diversion has been detected to disable the comment field and improve message directing users to Submit Diversion Report

• Made providing Focus Airport required when creating Focus Airport Activity

• Made selecting aircraft mandatory when dispatching

• Experimental change in Route Exporter to see if issue with fleet IDs not populating sometimes is fixed

• Changed Created At column format in Routing Exporter

• Fixed Focus Airport Activity not rewarding points on PIREP

• Fixed custom Fleet/Aircraft images in Flight Map showing a link to null when attribution link is not provided

• Fixed to Livery Review permission not enabling said access in Orwell

• Added link to Hangar in Orwell for VAs which have it enabled and Staff has permission to manage it

• Added Registered Pilots indicator in the Activity List in Phoenix

• Added SayIntentions as a Default Network option in Pilot Preferenes in Phoenix

• Changed when Delete button shows in Orwell → Pilots → Holidays. Holidays can only be deleted before they start and presence of disabled button was confusing to VA Staff