Hangar

Hangar is the vAMSYS file storage and distribution service for Virtual Airlines. It is where you publish liveries, manuals, checklists, utilities, and anything else your pilots need to download. Files are versioned, grouped into packs and categories, tagged against simulators and add-ons, and every download is logged.

Hangar is a separate application from Phoenix and Orwell. It lives at hangar.to, and the links you see in Orwell and Phoenix simply point at it. vAMSYS owns three things: the module toggles that switch Hangar on, the Can Access Hangar staff permission, and the feed of airline, rank, pilot, and staff data that Hangar reads. Everything else — files, versions, packs, categories, add-ons, authors, sources, download logs — is managed inside Hangar itself.

Hangar signs you in with vAMSYS SSO — a single Login via vAMSYS button. There is no separate Hangar account and no Hangar password to set or reset. Each Virtual Airline gets its own address built from its ICAO prefix and its airline ID, so a VA with the prefix ABC and the ID 42 lives at hangar.to/ABC42.

Turning Hangar On

In Orwell, go to Settings → vAMSYS Modules and find the Hangar section. You need the Can Manage Airline Settings permission to open this page. There are three settings:

• Enable Hangar — enables Hangar for VA staff. Off by default. Nothing about Hangar exists for your VA until this is on.

• Make Hangar Public — enables Hangar for pilots of the VA. Off by default. Leave it off while you build your file library, then turn it on to open Hangar to everyone.

• Hangar Name — what Hangar is called in your navigation. Downloads, Resources, or just Hangar. Defaults to "Hangar", is limited to 240 characters, and only appears in the form once Enable Hangar is on. It is required once shown.

Who Can Get In

The two toggles combine to decide who Hangar lets through the door:

Setting	Who gets in
Enable Hangar off	Nobody. Hangar refuses entry to your VA entirely, and the Hangar item disappears from Orwell.
Enabled, not public	Airline owners, Team vAMSYS, and staff with Can Access Hangar. Pilots are turned away.
Enabled and public	Any pilot of the VA can browse and download. Staff with Can Access Hangar additionally get the management sections.

Switch both toggles off together when you retire Hangar. The link in the Phoenix sidebar keys on Make Hangar Public alone, so turning Enable Hangar off while leaving Make Hangar Public on leaves pilots with a link under Resources that Hangar then refuses to honour, because its own check requires the VA to be both enabled and public.

Granting Staff Access

In Orwell, go to HQ → Staff, edit a staff member, and turn on Can Access Hangar in the Subsystem Access section, next to Can Access Orwell. It is off by default for every new staff member, and you need Can see Staff to reach the list in the first place. Airline owners and Team vAMSYS always have full Hangar management access regardless of this toggle, and the Subsystem Access section is hidden entirely on Team vAMSYS staff records.

Finding Hangar

• Staff, from Orwell — Systems → Hangar. This item only appears when Enable Hangar is on and you hold Can Access Hangar (Team vAMSYS always sees it). It links straight out to your VA's Hangar address.

• Pilots, from Phoenix — in the sidebar under Resources, labelled with whatever you set as your Hangar Name. It opens in a new tab, and it is only rendered when Make Hangar Public is on.

• Staff, from Phoenix — a Hangar entry also appears in the app switcher block of the Phoenix sidebar for any staff member of a VA with Enable Hangar on.

That app switcher entry does not check Can Access Hangar — every staff member sees it. Only the Orwell item is a reliable indicator that someone actually holds the permission.

How Hangar Is Organised

Hangar's sidebar groups the staff sections into File Management (files, packs, and the download log), Groups (categories and add-ons), Creators (authors and sources), and Settings. A Help group holds a link to the Hangar manual. Every one of those sections is gated on Hangar management access — pilots see only the home page, Files, Packs, and Your Downloads.

Files and Versions

A file is the listing your pilots browse — the name, images, description, and tagging. A version is the thing they actually download. A file can carry as many versions as you like, each with its own changelog, and the newest one is what pilots are offered.

When you create a file you set:

• Name (required) and a Published toggle.

• Categories (required, one or more) and Packs (optional, one or more).

• Simulators (optional) and Addons. The add-on picker stays hidden and disabled until you choose at least one simulator, and it then offers only your VA's add-ons that match all of the simulators you selected.

• Images (at least one required, reorderable) and a Description (required).

The pilot-facing file list only shows files that are published and have at least one version, so a file with no version is invisible no matter how complete the listing looks. In practice a usable file needs a name, at least one category, at least one image, a description, and one version.

Each version has a Version number (required — v1, 1.0.0, whatever scheme you use), a required Changelog, optional Authors, and an External toggle asking whether the file is hosted outside Hangar. Leave External off and you upload the file itself. Turn it on and you instead supply a Link — which must be a reachable URL — along with the Sources it comes from, which become required.

Two shortcuts save time on the version form. A hint action fills in 1.0.0 with a changelog of "Initial Release" for a first version, and Copy Previous clones the version number, changelog, external flag, link, authors, and sources from the previous version so you only edit what changed. Uploaded versions have their size read from storage when they are created; external versions are recorded as zero.

On the staff file list, a Copy row action duplicates a file with its categories, simulators, packs, and add-ons attached but without its versions or download counts, then opens the copy for editing. Bulk actions cover Set Pack, Change Status (publish or unpublish), and delete. Above the table, a stats panel shows # Files, total Size across every version, and 30 Day Bandwidth summed from the last 30 days of downloads.

Categories, Packs, Add-ons, and Simulators

• Categories have a name and an optional parent. The parent picker only offers categories that have no parent themselves, so nesting is capped at two levels. Drag the handles to reorder them — that order drives both the picker on the file form and the filter tree pilots browse with.

• Packs have a name, at least one image, and a description. A pack is a bundle pilots can download in one go, and it only ever exposes its published files.

• Addons have a name and one or more simulators, both required, and belong to your VA alone. Create the add-ons you fly — aircraft packages, scenery, utilities — so pilots can filter by them.

• Simulators are a fixed list shared by every VA: Microsoft Flight Simulator 95, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020), X-Plane 11, X-Plane 12, and Prepar3D v1 through v6. There is no screen for editing them.

• Authors have a name, plus an optional email address and website, and credit whoever made the file. Sources have a name and a website, both required, and identify where an externally hosted download lives.

What Pilots See

The Hangar home page shows Recent Files — the four published files with the newest version — and Popular Files, the eight published files with the most downloads. The Files screen is a grid of image cards, paginated 18, 36, 72, or all at once, with filters for the category tree, simulators, and add-ons sitting above the content.

A file's own page has a lightbox image gallery, the description, per-version changelogs, the simulators and add-ons it applies to, its authors and sources, and a list of versions with their dates. The download button is labelled Download with the file size in brackets after it; an externally hosted version shows a plain Download button with no size. Under Download History the page shows how many times the file has been downloaded across the whole VA and when that pilot last took a copy, or "Not Downloaded Yet".

If the version is hosted externally, a confirmation modal headed You are leaving Hangar names the third-party sources before the pilot continues. Packs get their own page with Download All and, where it applies, Download Missing/Outdated, both showing the size they will pull. Pack downloads stream as a single ZIP named after the pack, and each file inside it still records its own download.

Download Records

Every download is logged with the airline, file, version, user, user agent, IP address, and size. Pilots get a Your Downloads list of their own history showing the file, version, and date, with a Remove Download Record action per row and a bulk equivalent. Removing a record deletes it outright.

Staff get the full download log under File Management, showing the user, file, version, and an Ignored by User flag, with a filter on that flag and bulk Mark as Ignored / Mark as Not Ignored actions. Marking a download as ignored makes Hangar discount it when working out what that pilot already has: the file comes back in Download Missing/Outdated, and the Update Available badge falls back to their most recent download that is not ignored. That flag is set from the staff log, not by pilots.

Direct download links check two things: that the requester is signed in, and that they are a pilot of the airline the file belongs to. Anyone else gets a 403. They do not re-check the Published flag. Unpublishing removes a file from browsing and from packs, but a pilot who already has the link can still fetch it — delete the file if you need it gone for good.

Branding Hangar

Hangar brands itself with your Hangar Name and the light and dark logos from your vAMSYS design settings, so you change most of its appearance in Orwell rather than in Hangar. The exception is colour: staff with Hangar management access can set six palette overrides in Hangar's own Settings — gray, primary, info, success, warning, and danger — each picked from the standard Tailwind palette names (Slate, Gray, Zinc, Neutral, Stone, Red, Orange, Amber, Yellow, Lime, Green, Emerald, Teal, Cyan, Sky, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Purple, Fuchsia, Pink, Rose). All six are required.

Permissions

Permission	Grants
Can Access Hangar	The Hangar item in Orwell's Systems menu, and inside Hangar the files, packs, download log, categories, add-ons, authors, sources, and settings sections
Can Manage Airline Settings	Access to Settings → vAMSYS Modules, and therefore the ability to change Enable Hangar, Make Hangar Public, and Hangar Name
Can see Staff	Access to HQ → Staff, where the Can Access Hangar toggle is edited
Airline Owner	Full Hangar management access at all times, whether or not Can Access Hangar is set

Related

• General Settings — the vAMSYS Modules page where the three Hangar settings live

• Staff — add staff members and grant Can Access Hangar

• Branding — the logos Hangar picks up from your vAMSYS design settings

• Resources & Documents — where pilots find the Hangar link in Phoenix