The Airline Lives!
After working throughout the night (finally stopping at 3:30am) to upgrade the airline with the latest version of it’s underlying server software (laravel), the base flight management system (phpvms), and the latest version of ACARS, numerous problems were encountered, and undocumented problems and failures experienced.
I have solved most of them, but others remain in the source code of the platform itself.
As you will see if you visit https://airline.virtualflight.online this morning, the airline is there - but it has reverted to the base installation of PHPVMS. All this really means for users is tours are not there.
I peformed a test flight last night with Flight Simulator 2024 and the latest beta of ACARS, and it almost worked perfectly. ACARS complained while filing the flight, but upon checking the website, the flight had successfully filed.
Go try it out!
Feel free to try out the airline and ACARS - the online guide to the Airline has been updated, and the new version of ACARS is available for download.
User guide
ACARS download
The new version of acars is being shared from Google Drive - it’s big. The foot-print when running is small - it just comes with the database of airports from Flight Simulator, which means no more scanning scenery within ACARS.
The guide to setting up ACARS is updated too:
Arranging flights in the Airline
I thought it might be useful to explain how to arrange flights in the airline:
Free Flights with ACARS
If you want to perform a "free flight", you can fill details directly into the ACARS client while your aircraft is sitting on the ground at the departure airport - this will include your chosen airline, flight number, departure airfield, destination airfield, and aircraft type. You can ignore the leg and code number.
If you wish to use Simbrief for a free flight, just load simbrief as per normal in a browser, then copy the flight details across into the new flight form in ACARS.
Scheduled Flights
Visit the Flights page within the airline, and search for a flight that interests you. After pulling up information on the flight, you can send the details either directly to ACARS (make sure ACARS isn't running), or generate a Simbrief flight plan first, and then send.
Will tours be coming back?
Probably not in the short term. Getting the airline upgraded to even be operational again has been somewhat of an adventure.
One last thing
I have closed down the Patreon account for VirtualFlight.Online. Thank you to all that have contributed over the last couple of years - you helped keep the lights on!