I am pleased to announce as of today and with the Vatsim announcement of the new vPilot release which removes the flight plan form, we are capable of supporting the prefile option within the schedules once again.

A new version of vPilot 3.8 has been released, which includes a few major changes:

Removal of Flight Plan Form

As of version 3.8, vPilot no longer includes a flight plan form. The Flight Plan button will now redirect you to my.vatsim.net/pilots/flightplan, where you can enter all details manually or use a flight planning suite like SimBrief. After generating your flight plan, use the ‘Prefile on a Network’ option. Ensure that you’ve entered the same callsign in the vPilot Connection dialogue box as the one you’ve filed in the flight plan.

Read the SOAR post about how to file a flight plan here: blog.vatsim.net/s-o-a-r-planning-a-flight

Addition of .ctaf command

As a part of the CTAF trial for VATUSA, vPilot now has an additional feature where you can retrieve the CTAF frequency for US airports by typing .ctaf in the chat box. (eg, .ctaf KBOS)

Tune Frequency

You can now tune the controller’s frequency in your COM1 or COM2 radio by simply right clicking on the controller callsign and selecting the “Tune XXX-XXX on COM 1/2″ option.

There are some fields that you will still need to complete once you click the link, but the main part of the form ie, departure/arrival aircraft etc will be pre populated. These fields will also work in conjunction with Simbrief, If the Vatsim server detects a flight plan already it will ask you if you wish to edit this or complete a new entry.

Hopefully, this will assist pilots in filing their plans when flying on Vatsim.

Kind regards,

Mark.

This has been updated. The Vatsim button will now be populated on the Simbrief output, utilising the Simbriefs generated plan, which, of course, makes more sense.

The only required fields on the Vatsim page will now be your Flight Level, Cruise Speed, and Departure Time. All other fields are completed when you press the button.