News

First of all, happy new year! We will be kicking this year off with some major announcements.

oneworld virtual

After having launched both SkyTeam Virtual and Star Alliance Virtual, only one major airline alliance was still missing: oneworld. Today we are completing the major three alliances by launching oneworld virtual, available now at oneworldvirtual.org.

All three VAs are part of VASystem and use our in-house developed system. The pilot handbook and rules for all three VAs are the same. However, all three are still completely separate VAs with no integration: profiles are not shared. You will need to register separately on oneworld virtual and we will not transfer hours between the VAs to keep the workload managable for the staff members of all three VAs. It is possible to login to all three VAs using a single login, which is described at our support site.

To register for oneworld virtual, visit its website at oneworldvirtual.org.

VAS ACARS NXT

After a few months of behind the scenes work, we now have an early alpha version of a new version of VAS ACARS, which we will refer to as VAS ACARS NXT. This version is a complete rewrite and uses completely different technology than the current version of VAS ACARS. We hope that this version will resolve issues some pilots experience during flights, or when uploading.

However, as this is still an early alpha, there are of some limitations and things you need to be aware of. One major feature that is still missing is the chat, we hope to be adding it at a later date. Instead, we recommend to join our Discord and ask your questions or chat with your fellow pilots in the appropriate channels. If you have not yet joined our Discord, visit discord.gg/gUTREjv. Moreover, as this is a completely new version of VAS ACARS still in the alpha stage, there may be new issues which we might not yet be aware of. Therefore, there will be a separate forum category in which you will be able to discuss VAS ACARS NXT with staff members and of course fellow pilots. You can find this forum category here. We will also be posting updates on the status of VAS ACARS NXT there.

If you have read all these limitations and would still like to try this new version of VAS ACARS, you can download VAS ACARS NXT from here. It can be installed alongside the current version of VAS ACARS will continue being supported whilst more features make their way into VAS ACARS NXT in the future. Note this is a completely seperate version which is installed next to your existing version, the new version can be identified by the new logo present on the created shortcuts.

Pushback

We now also have a better detection algorithm for the pushback phase: we are now able to detect whether you have done a pushback and will dynamically add or remove the pushback phase from your flight analysis based on whether you have done a pushback. If you don't have a pushback phase, the lights that would normally be checked during the pushback are now checked during the taxi-out phase. Moreover, when you do have a pushback it now includes an item that checks whether your engines were shut off at the start of the pushback. That also means that we now detect a pushback even if your engines were already started, which was the most likely cause of your missed pushback before. Now you will instead get a point reduction for starting your engines prior to pushback.

The Complete Guide To Flight Scoring will be updated in the coming weeks to also document this behaviour. Since our last update in August, this guide has also been updated with a section on short flights which is also a new feature of the flight processor. When your flight is very short, you usually do not reach the threshold of 11,000 ft AGL to enter the cruise phase. Therefore, short flights use a different method of determing your cruise phase and skip some phases such that you will still get full score.

Hello pilots,

This update will be rather short, and concerns Adria Airways. Unfortunately this airline has been unable to recover from it difficult situation and we will be removing Adria Airways from our member list on November 1st, given that the airline is no longer part of Star Alliance. Any tours which rely on Adria Airways to be completed can be completed for the duration of this month, after which they will either be retired or updated.

Hello Pilots,

We have added a simple search function to the forum, which can be found at the bottom of the page. Moreover, the performance of the new destinations checkbox has been improved.

As visible progress in development of the VA has slowed down in the past few months, we will be discontinuing our monthly news updates from September onwards. We will continue to keep you updated when development progresses at a higher rate. As always you are welcome to continue to post suggestions, of tours, or general suggestions to improve the VA in our forums.

As always, the monthly tour is now available to fly, operating flights throughout the asia-pacific region.

Hello pilots,

This month we have made various changes to the website. For example, we have added an "Only new destinations" filter to the routes page. This will allow you to find new destinations to visit. For example, if you set the departure to WSSS and check "Only new destinations", you will find all routes that make you visit a new destination from Singapore Changi airport.

Another change you might have seen already is that the logbook now includes icons when reviewer remarks were left on your flight. In addition, the homepage will show a notification when there were reviewer remarks on your last flight, to hopefully assist you in finding out about potential rule violations before flights start getting denied.

Most of the other changes on the website were made to improve the experience for our staff and to other internal tools. This will make updating routes easier for us and will hopefully allow us to have a more up-to-date schedule.

The monthly tour is now also available to fly, this time taking you across Western Europe.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use https://discord.gg/gUTREjv.

As always if you have any suggestions please let us know.

Hello Pilots,

This month all airlines have been migrated to their respective summer schedule. If there are any routes that appear to be missing please let us know and we will add them as soon as possible. There have been some more changes to the back-end to add to our ability to provide support via the support ticket system if required.

Moreover, the Pilot Handbook has been updated to clarify some existing rules. We have also updated the aircraft substitution widget to allow you to view the complete list of allowed substitutions.

The monthly tour is now also available to fly, this time taking you across in North America.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use https://discord.gg/gUTREjv.

As always if you have any suggestions please let us know.

Hello Pilots,

This month we have migrated to the summer schedule, and we will be continually updating our route list as more routes are added by the real-world airlines.

In addition to updating the routes, we have made various back-end improvements, which improve the reliability and scalability of our services.

The monthly tour is now also available to fly, this time taking you throughout Scandinavia and Europe.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use https://discord.gg/gUTREjv.

Hi pilots,

You might have noticed there have been various changes throughout the VA.

The most noticeable change is the change in map provider on the live flights and route map. We have exceeded our quota on Google Maps and as such we have switched some of our maps to a different map provider. In this change, we have also made some minor improvements to the map, such as adding airport ICAO labels. Moreover, the map now also displays on which online network a pilot is flying, which is updated every ten minutes.

As always, the monthly tour is now available to fly.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use https://discord.gg/gUTREjv.

Hi pilots,

This past month we have made numerous changes throughout the VA.

The flight scoring processor has been updated to improve compatibility with various X-plane add-ons. There have been a number of updates to VAS-ACARS as well: you can now leave a comment during the complete flight; the comment box when submitting your flight will be automatically populated with this comment. Moreover, there is now a visual and audible warning if VAS-ACARS is no longer receiving data from FSUIPC and local log files and flight data are automatically removed after a set period.

The website has received a redesigned route and profile page based on feedback from the community. The new pages should be more easily viewable and more compact by reducing whitespace. The flight briefing page has received an update as well for giving it a more coherent lay-out. The aircraft substitution matrix has been updated to take the form of a comparison widget, allowing you to compare the bookable aircraft types with the aircraft type you would like to substitute. This widget can be found on the VASystem website.

As you might have noticed, we will also be adding more events to our system. On our homepage you can view the upcoming events. In addition, each event usually has bonuses associated with them, so be sure to check them out!

To conclude this update, you can fly our monthly tour, this time taking us through Central Europe.

Hello pilots,

After a relatively succesful first month of operation we have changed and added various things both on the back-end of the VA as well as the front end.

Our Flight and Pilot Policy has been updated to both increase realism and to prevent abuse. Please read these carefully as they will be enforced starting February 2nd.

The second change is that we have updated the tour progression system, changing its dependency from the booking to the flown route. This will streamline route updating and should keep tours and tour progression more consistent.

Numerous new tours have been added for you to fly and another Star Alliance partner has been added, Helvetic Airways. Helvetic operates flights solely for Swiss International Airlines and as such is an excellent fit for the VA.

To close off this update the monthly tour is now available to fly, this time taking you throughout the Middle East.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use https://discord.gg/gUTREjv.

As of today a new virtual airline has started. This airline aims to simulate the daily operations of the airline alliance Star Alliance Virtual. With over 50 airlines and over 40,000 routes to choose from, you will be sure to find a route that fits your style!

Welcome aboard, and please enjoy your flight.

If you have any suggestions, please leave them on the forum or create a support ticket.

We also have a Discord server, which you can join by clicking this link.