News

Hello pilots,

In this month's news update we will highlight MSFS2024 support, some development updates, and information about the new flying season.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 support

We expect VAS ACARS to support Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on day 1. We will release an update of VAS ACARS in the coming few days that will add basic support for MSFS2024 based on the TechAlpha and information that is publicly available. This should ensure that you can record flights in MSFS2024 on November 19 by using the VAS ACARS SimConnect connector.

Development updates

In our last update, we shared a preview of our native integration of VAS ACARS with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Unfortunately, this native integration will not be available for Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020), and will only be available for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. We do not yet have a date for this release as we still need to do additional testing and would like to have it available on the MSFS marketplace, but we are still working on bringing this experience to everyone.

We have refreshed our support site: all information is now easier to find in the support section, some documentation has been restructured to be easier to follow, and dark mode is now supported. We would recommend checking it out before creating a support ticket.

Schedule updates

We will be moving to the Northern Winter/Southern Summer flying season in the coming weeks. We expect to complete this changeover by the end of November. If you notice any irregular flight times and/or missing routes after this time please let us know in the Discord server or in a support ticket.

Tour updates

We continue to work on updating our existing tours, and if you have tours that you would like to see do not hesitate to let us know!

The monthly tour takes you across the North-Western United States. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/5wMqZnpS2w.

Hello pilots,

In this month's news update we will highlight some of our development updates, as well outline future plans.

Development updates

In July, we updated the statistics on the pilot profile page to be more easily navigable and to give a better overview of your overall performance. If you have any suggestions on what more you'd like to see on your profile page, please let us know in the Discord server.

The past few weeks we've been working on a native integration of VAS ACARS into Microsoft Flight Simulator which will not require running an external program. We have made a lot of progress on this and can now fully record and submit flight reports from within MSFS. We are planning to continue development of this VAS ACARS version and hope to make it available to you by the end of the year. The main reason for the development of this new version is to add Xbox support, but this will depend on whether we can get this version of VAS ACARS published in the MSFS marketplace.

Airline updates

Qatar Airways has taken a 25% in the South African airline Airlink. This airline has been added and adds more routes and unique destinations throughout southern Africa. The Hawaiian Airlines acquisition by the Alaska Airlines group has passed most legal hurdles. We expect to integrate Hawaiian Airlines in the VA in Q4 of this year when the acquisition is finalized.

We will follow real-world events closely and keep you informed in these posts of future happenings.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/5wMqZnpS2w.

Hello pilots,

In this month's news update we will highlight some of our development updates, as well outline future plans.

Development updates

We have released a new version of VAS ACARS that streamlines the UI and aligns it with the flight briefing page. It also adds support or improves compatibility with a few aircraft add-ons. For full details, please see the release notes of version 3.2.3.

Tour updates

We continue to work on updating our existing tours, and if you have tours that you would like to see do not hesitate to let us know!

The monthly tour takes you across Southeast Asia. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/5wMqZnpS2w.

Hello pilots,

In this month's news update we will highlight some of the VA updates, as well outline future plans.

Schedule updates

All routes have been moved to the Northern Summer/Southern Winter flying season in the past few weeks. As part of this, we have reduced the number of duplicated routes which also results in more accurate departure and arrival times. If you notice any irregular flight times and/or missing routes after this time please let us know in the Discord server or in a support ticket.

Tour updates

We continue to work on updating our existing tours, and if you have tours that you would like to see do not hesitate to let us know!

The monthly tour takes you across the United States. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/EAKR7Qe.

Hello pilots,

In this month's news update we will highlight some of our development updates, as well outline future plans.

Development updates

We have reworked the landing bonus to be more reflective of ideal real-world landing rates. In addition to this the landing bonus is now granular, allowing for fairer scoring. A landing bonus is now provided for landing rates between -600fpm and 0 fpm; with the maximum possible score being awarded between landing rates of -200fpm and -60fpm. The full distribution graph can be found below:

Tour based score bonuses have also been added; after careful deliberation and work these bonuses will apply to all previously completed tours. All retro-active score bonuses will be added upon your next completed flight. The bonus score differs per tour and is based on a combination of the number of legs in a tour as well the total distance. The total awarded score is listed in the tour description for each tour. We are looking at reworking, and clarifying the existing booking procedure. This may include a possible rework of the current aircraft substitution system. If you have any ideas on how to improve this, please let us know.

Tour updates

We have introduced a new tour category: Hub tours. These tours will rotate throughout different hubs every 12-18 months. Throughout the coming year we will slowly be reworking and replacing older tours that have been active for more than two years.

The monthly tour takes you across the Western US and Hawaii. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there!

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/EAKR7Qe.

Happy New Year and we wish you all the best for 2024!

This month's news update will highlight some of our development updates, as well as future plans.

Development updates

We have completed our work on individual airline load factors, with every airline having been assigned a custom load factor mirroring real world operations. The passenger and cargo levels on your flight are now based on these airline load factors, and should be a more realistic representation of real-world load factors.

We are investigating adding score bonuses when completing a tour based on tour distance. These will apply retroactively, as well as to newly completed tours. We don't have a solid time frame on this, but hope to implement this in the coming few months. Moreover, we are working on adding a new filter on routes for only showing tour legs to help you in finding new tours to complete. To coincide with this, we are also investigating improving discoverability of tours. If you have any ideas on how to improve this, please let us know.

Airline updates

Alaska Airlines has submitted a bid for a takeover of Hawaiian Airlines. When this deal receives regulatory approval sometime this year Hawaiian Airlines will be added to the VA.

Throughout the industry there is still a drive for further consolidation and we will follow real-world events closely and keep you informed in these posts of future happenings.

Tour updates

We have introduced a numerous new airline tours and location tours. Throughout the coming year we will slowly be reworking and replacing older tours that have been active for more than two years.

The monthly tour takes you across the South-East Asia. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/EAKR7Qe.

Hello Pilots,

This month's news update will highlight some schedule updates, as well as some VA update news.

Development updates

We are working towards an overhaul of the passenger and payload system used for flight briefings. This will encompass individualized load factors on a by airline basis, with normalized distribution. Further load factors will be split between passenger and cargo load factors to provide more accuracy within the provided flight briefings. This will be rolling out before the end of the year. Further we are looking to rework the tours page to provide better discovery options and improve clarity on legs that have not been flown yet.

Schedule updates

JetBlue has been removed from the VA; there is unfortunately no longer any link or far reaching partnership with full oneworld members.

We will be moving to the Northern Winter/Southern Summer flying season in the coming weeks. We expect to complete this changeover by mid-November. If you notice any irregular flight times and/or missing routes after this time please let us know in the Discord server or in a support ticket.

Tour updates

We will be introducing new aircraft tours in the next few weeks; these will be accompanied by a new award.

The monthly tour takes you across the Eastern US. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Event Updates

We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/EAKR7Qe.

Hello Pilots,

This month's news update will highlight some airline updates, as well as some VA update news.

Development Updates

All fleets now have individual cabin configurations. If you find any anomalies or missing data please let us know. Moreover, all airlines have been assigned either imperial or metric units for use in on the flight briefing page. You can also change this setting so it always shows imperial or metric units on your preferences page. Further work is progressing on updating the generated payload to increase realism and accuracy.

Tour updates

We have introduced a number of new themed tours, and are working on further expanding our tour selection based on your suggestions on Discord.

The monthly tour takes you across the western United States. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. Recent developments have included the closures of Sudanese airspace and Niger airspace for all traffic, please take these into account when planning your flight. Exceeding the listed scheduled flight time for this reason is expected and not an issue. If your flight is given a remark incorrectly please let us know via support ticket.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.

Airline News

China Postal Airline and Chongqing Airlines, both part of the China Southern group has been added to the VA. This airline provides more cargo routes throughout Asia. Further minority owned Sichuan Airlines has also been added.

Unfortunately with the cessation of the North-East Alliance, JetBlue no longer maintains strong ties with any oneworld member airline. Therefore JetBlue will be removed from the VA by mid-October to allow for outstanding tours to be completed. Any existing tours reliant on JetBlue routes can be completed until then after which a new reworked tour will take its place.

Event Updates

We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/PU5gMJ7.

Hello Pilots,

This month's news update will highlight some development updates, as well as some VA update news.

Development Updates

We have made various improvements to the website. We have added complete cabin configurations to aircraft, including different cabin configurations within an airline subfleet. Starting today, you will be able to see the cabin configuration of your booked aircraft on the flight briefing page. Additionally, live flights will now show the route as flown rather than the great circle route. Lastly, you are now able to set the unit system (kgs, lbs) you'd like to use on your preferences page. By default, we'll use the airline's unit system. This has not been setup yet, but in the next few weeks all airlines will be updated, so you'll start seeing lbs being used by default for airlines which use lbs as their main unit.

Tour updates

We have introduced a number of new themed tours, the aircraft tours selection is also being updated.

The monthly tour takes you across Oceania. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Event Updates

We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/PU5gMJ7.

Hello Pilots,

This month's news update will highlight some development updates, as well as some VA update news.

Development Updates

VAS ACARS 3.2.0 was released yesterday which includes native support for X-Plane. Instead of using XPUIPC and the FSUIPC connector, you can now install the new vasxplane plugin and use the X-Plane connector. This should be more stable and will allow us to support more operating systems in the future. It will also allow us to add support for specific aircraft natively within the plugin. For information on how to get started, please see our renewed X-Plane guide on our support website. VAS ACARS 3.2.0 also incorporated numerous other changes and improvements, for a full list please check the release notes.

In the last few weeks, we have been improving our database infrastructure. This project is now complete and has resulted in a noticeable speed-up on some pages:

We have also made various other improvements to the website, such as adding the aircraft substitutions widget in a few more places, improving our map style by for example adding runway and taxiway names to the map, adding a "Flights Yesterday" statistic to our statistics page, and replacing "Boarding" by "Pre-departure" for non-passenger carrying flights on live flights. 18 more airports around the world have received airport gate information. The flight processor has been updated to support the 'Hotel' mode on the recently released Microsoft ATR airliners when VAS ACARS 3.2.0 is used. Finally, the Pilot Handbook and the Complete Guide to Flight Scoring have received updates to further clarify how flights are scored. If you have any suggestions for other improvements we can make, post them in the #suggestions channel on our Discord server or create a support ticket.

Tour updates

We have introduced a number of new themed tours, and are working on further expanding our tour selection based on your suggestions.

The monthly tour takes you across the Middle East and to India. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.

Closed airspaces

Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. Exceeding the listed scheduled flight time for this reason is expected and not an issue. If your flight is given a remark incorrectly please let us know via support ticket.

Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA. This will be the last time this is mentioned in our newspost and the pilot handbook has been rewritten for more information on this subject for future reference.

Event Updates

We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.

Closing words

As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.

We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/PU5gMJ7.