Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Wish List: Flight Dispatch System

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Wish List: Flight Dispatch System

DVA1289
Captain, B767-300

Joined on August 08 2003
Online Century Club
50 State Club
Double Century Club

""V1... Rotate... V2""
Houston, TX

234 legs, 602.7 hours
111 legs, 278.1 hours online
87 legs, 272.2 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 15:23 ET by Jonathan Voss

One of the few things I have wished for in a Virtual Airline for the longest time is some kind of Flight Dispatch system. I would like to propose some sort of automated system that would issue you a "flight release" when signing up for flights. If we could develop some system to automatically retrieve metar reports and preferred routes I think we could make our airline even more realistic. Basically a basic flight report for our purposes would need to include: Flight number, equipment, route, departure time, arrival time, metar reports and anything else deemed critical. Is this a posibilty for the future here or am I just reaching too far?? I know a little MySQL, PHP, Perl, and extensive HTML and I honestly think it might not be too hard to set up. So I am curious for my fellow pilots and especially DVA management, in your views on some kind of automated flight dispatching service?

DVA1392
First Officer, B737-800

Joined on November 16 2003

Northeastern United States

33 legs, 62.1 hours
30 legs, 57.3 hours online
4 legs, 7.8 hours ACARS
8 legs, 19.0 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 16:08 ET by Ross Carlson

I think this would be a great feature for DVA. I am also skilled in php/perl/mysql development and could offer some time as well as hosting.

-Ross

Ross Carlson (DVA1392)

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 16:22 ET by Jonathan Voss

Ross -
Perhaps if the webteam is not able to work on this right now, maybe you and I could develope a prototype or work with the webteam. I will certainly be able to help with this project smile

Still waiting to hear what the rest of you think!

-Jon

DVA1407
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 13 2003

Southeastern United States

5 legs, 7.3 hours

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 18:13 ET by Kyle Ferriss

Sounds like a great idea, I'd help but I can't do that sortof thing, but I can be a guieney pig.

Kyle Ferriss (DVA1407)

DVA1296
First Officer, B737-800

Joined on July 05 2003

Southeastern United States

14 legs, 21.9 hours
14 legs, 21.9 hours online

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 18:36 ET by Chanse Watson

Dispatch systems are banned from the VATSIM network.

Chanse Watson (DVA1296)

DVA1038
Captain, B737-800
E-MAIL

Joined on January 12 2003
Century Club

"Celer, Silens, Mortalis"
Summerville, SC USA

169 legs, 1,008.2 hours
56 legs, 288.5 hours online
25 legs, 221.2 hours ACARS
1 legs, 5.0 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 18:45 ET by Kevin Cornish

As Chanse pointed out, VATSIM won't allow anyone to have a flight dispatch system. It takes up to much space. The Idea for a dispatch system has been floated I don't know how many times. While everyone agrees it would be great to have, no one has been able to figure out how to build one and use without getting VATSIM upset at us.

Kevin Cornish

Captain, B737-800

DVA1129
Senior Captain, B757-200
E-MAIL

Joined on March 10 2003
Million Mile Club
Millennium Club
Online Six Century Club

""never ever give up""
Ardmore, OK USA

1,210 legs, 3,192.7 hours
602 legs, 1,222.0 hours online
508 legs, 1,054.6 hours ACARS
15 legs, 27.7 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 21:13 ET by Craig Davidson

well maybe a flight dispatch system is out of the question but some kind of flight biding deal is not Virtual FedEx has an awesome system i love it.

Craig Davidson (DVA1129)

Posted onPost created on January 03 2004 21:43 ET by Jonathan Voss

Well, I wasn't talking about an online flight dispatch system. I was talking about some sort of automated process that would send you a flight plan and other such data to an e-mail address... I would definatly require more discusson from the airline as a whole, but I think do-able

DVA917
Captain, B767-300

Joined on October 20 2002
Century Club
Online Century Club

Western Canada

184 legs, 385.6 hours
155 legs, 325.6 hours online
50 legs, 115.8 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 04:26 ET by Glenn Blanco

If you wanted a flight dispatch system, I think DVA has an alternative already. We have the Flight Assignments section. It's in the menu when you log in. It isn't updated as you wanted to be though. However, it reserves a series of legs for you and puts in the information on the PIREP for you. Check it out. If that was what you guys were looking for, then we already have it. But if you are looking for something that'll give you more, like the real deal, well maybe you guys can talk to the management about it. Whilst VATSIM won't allow it, I don't think it would be a problem if we had it just for the VA. We won't have to use it online. We just use it to get info for our flights like flight plans, etc.

Glenn Blanco (DVA917)

DVA1296
First Officer, B737-800

Joined on July 05 2003

Southeastern United States

14 legs, 21.9 hours
14 legs, 21.9 hours online

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 05:10 ET by Chanse Watson

I don't mind working with Luke on the bidding system. I have many real DAL bid sheets, because my mom is a flight attendent and we can work off of those. Next time I go to ATL, I'll see if I can get down to the DAL shop again and see what stuff they have to offer there. I don't recall if there is any actual routing, which is all done in the briefing before the employees board the aircraft.

I do have a real flight brief as well from my trip to Italy. Very interesting however a lot of information must be considered (weather, altitudes, crossings, ETA, etc).

Chanse Watson (DVA1296)

DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
Bi-Millennium Club
Four Million Mile Club

"Col. Panic"
Marietta, GA

2,347 legs, 9,466.0 hours
240 legs, 553.9 hours online
2,005 legs, 8,259.1 hours ACARS
75 legs, 196.3 hours event
2,383 legs, 9,600.9 hours total
91 legs dispatched, 66.4 hours

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 06:04 ET by Luke Kolin

With the imminent completion of the new schedule import system, I have a question regarding Flight Assignments and bid sheets.

Right now, everything is keyed off of the flight number - this will probably be changing every few months due to renumbering of flights. How should we handle this? I'm in a situation right now where I doubt if the current pre-populated Flight Assignments can survive.

Cheers!

Luke

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

DVA1008
Senior Captain, B757-200

Joined on December 14 2002
B757 100 Club
Everett 250 Club
50 State Club
Six Century Club
Online Six Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

"Fly 'till the map turns blue"
Kokomo, IN

633 legs, 1,731.3 hours
613 legs, 1,689.9 hours online
212 legs, 792.3 hours ACARS
35 legs, 77.7 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 07:22 ET by Matt Young

I never really liked the assignments anyway. The only way I think they could survive is if we used them on the L1011, DC-8, 727 and other historic aircraft.

Matt Young

Senior Captain, B757-200

DVA953
Senior Captain, B737-800
E-MAIL

Joined on November 17 2002
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Online Double Century Club

"V1 means V1..."
West Lafayette, IN USA

214 legs, 376.8 hours
211 legs, 373.0 hours online
117 legs, 223.6 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 07:58 ET by James Brickell

Maybe we should put an expiry date on them, namely, the next date the schedule updates.

James Brickell (DVA953)

DVA677
Senior Captain, B777-200

Joined on July 10 2002
Century Club
Online Century Club

Midwestern United States

113 legs, 349.7 hours
101 legs, 329.0 hours online
8 legs, 25.3 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 09:44 ET by Taylor Dumont

werent people in DVA working on an ACARS/Dispatch called WARTS or WARTZ (whatever)? whatever happened to that idea?

Taylor Dumont

Senior Captain, B777-200

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 10:19 ET by Ross Carlson

Not sure about that, since I'm pretty new to DVA, but I've been wanting to do some sort of ACARS system for virtual airlines. What I'm picturing would consist of a small program that runs on your PC and tracks your flight, including position, altitude, speed, weather, time on/off, etc. Basically all the stuff that FS Flight Tracker logs. But this would track it during the flight and send it to my web site, which would log it. VA administrators could log into the site and see the current status of any flight in their VA, possibly with mapping capabilities.

Thoughts?

P.S. - Regarding the dispatch system, what does it have to do with VATSim? Why are they prohibited on VATSim? I don't see how the two areas overlap. The dispatch system assigns your flight, and you fly it on VATSim (if you want) ... sounds like synergy to me.

-Ross

Ross Carlson (DVA1392)

Posted onPost created on January 04 2004 10:24 ET by Jonathan Voss

This sounds like an excellent idea! Realtime flight status available through a web site would provide a new level of realism as well as add the ability to have a "flight status board" with ALL flights, online and "offline" (i.e. off VATSIM). Let me know if you need any help with this project.

DVA1445
Captain, B757-200

Joined on December 23 2003

Western Europe

65 legs, 332.5 hours
5 legs, 11.9 hours online
1 legs, 3.0 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 06 2004 04:04 ET by Andrew Lawler

Guys,

http://www.satavirtual.org/fsacars/

This is a great tool. I used it when I was with Emirates VA. Very cool tool ... and it sends realistic ACARS messages to their website. It saves all of the useful info from the flight ... and can then send a specific PIREP to the VA if the VA has signed up with the group themselves.

Worth checking out.

Kind Regards,
Andrew

Andrew Lawler (DVA1445)

Posted onPost created on January 06 2004 09:31 ET by Ross Carlson

Wow ... that's almost exactly what I was envisioning. The only difference is that I would like to provide real time flight status boards on the web site, so anyone could monitor the status of any flight, search the flights, show them by airline, etc. I was also brainstorming a feature that would plot the location of all flights for a given airline on a map. Maybe I'll keep planning, not sure.

-Ross

Ross Carlson (DVA1392)

DVA1445
Captain, B757-200

Joined on December 23 2003

Western Europe

65 legs, 332.5 hours
5 legs, 11.9 hours online
1 legs, 3.0 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 08 2004 10:15 ET by Andrew Lawler

Ross,

That FSAcars software gives live data on their website, so a system is certainly feasable. (Check out the page on their site, 'Live Acars' or something ... then wait for a while, as the page will say 'no messages' initially ... soon after you should see the data appear). Similarly, the system gives automatic position reports every 15 minutes, and that is after the initial items/messages and the takeoff data. It's a very good system. I don't know, maybe it is a feature to look towards. I am certainly all in favour of adding to the realism.

Kind Regards,
Andrew

Andrew Lawler (DVA1445)

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