VATSIM statistics

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

I am currently using VATSTATS to get real time information about controllers, pilots online, etc. in addition to the history of my flights, and so on.

 

I'm a software developer myself, and would find it a potentially interesting endeavor to create a Windows application of my own to fetch historical data, much like VATSTATS.

 

Is there an API or web service available in which I can access this information?

[Kieran Samuel Cross]

I am currently using VATSTATS to get real time information about controllers, pilots online, etc. in addition to the history of my flights, and so on.

 

I'm a software developer myself, and would find it a potentially interesting endeavor to create a Windows application of my own to fetch historical data, much like VATSTATS.

 

Is there an API or web service available in which I can access this information?

 

This is a copy and paste of something I wrote in the Web Services sub-forum a while back. I think you'll mainly be wanting the https://status.vatsim.net, because of course you can cache certain things, such as names etc.

 

Be aware that (for some reason I don't understand, and brand stupid), if a pilot sets their home airport in vPilot (maybe other clients too, but I don't know), it'll append it to the end of their name, which results in names on the network (and even VATSIM Statistics Center) such as "Kieran Samuel Cross VABB".

 

Is there a website on VATSIM that docomeents its available APIs?

 

I've read these threads and it stated sometime 2016 a new API was being generated, but I can't seem to find an update?

 

Thanks,

 

 

By new API, I presume you'd be referring to CERT 2.0, which afaik has not yet been finished by Kieran Harden.

 

Many Regions/Divisions run their own API service (such as VATEUD), you could potentially hook onto those.

 

 

If you're looking for user data, without them logging in (SSO provides an amazing amount of data you could use), the following URLs could be of use:

 

1. Certificate Status: https://cert.vatsim.net/vatsimnet/idstatus.php?cid=1298134
   
2. Certificate Rating: https://cert.vatsim.net/vatsimnet/idstatusrat.php?cid=1298134
   
3. Certificate Pilot Rating: https://cert.vatsim.net/vatsimnet/idstatusprat.php?cid=1298134
   
4. Certificate Status (Int): https://cert.vatsim.net/vatsimnet/idstatusint.php?cid=1298134

 

 

 

If you're looking for data about who's online, this URL will be of use to you:

1. VATSIM Status: http://status.vatsim.net

 

You'll want to randomly select data from the set of

url0=

values you find. You should note that you can only query this every two minutes minimum, according to the VATSIM regs. This updates every two minutes, so it's pointless to do it any quicker anyway.

 

 

You can find the current METARs for an ICAO (or partial ICAO) using this URL:

1. VATSIM Metars: http://metar.vatsim.net/metar.php?id=EGGW

 

You'll notice, with the above URL, if you don't provide a full URL, you'll get results for the rest of that partial URL. This can be handy for some things, let's say you want to pull METARs for the whole of an FIR.

 

 

 

 

 

If none of this helps, I'd suggest waiting for CERT 2.0 to be released; whenever than happens.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Thanks. I'll take a look in to that soon. It may end up meeting my needs for now.

[Daniel Hawton]

There is no way to access VATSIM's Stats Center through an API. Sites like vataware, vatstats, airstats, etc. that provide historical data are actively pulling live data, parsing it, and archiving it. Live data can be accessed here: http://status.vatsim.net/

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

This is a great start. I'm working on something right now. Shouldn't be long at all to have a Windows based application. When complete I'll make it open source.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Okay, did a little work today. It's only a start, but it's a simple framework that I can expand upon. Thinking I'll add some maps, flight plans (they're already available, I'm just not showing them yet.) It would be really cool to actually show the flight plan on the map, like you see on SkyVector. Not sure how I'd pull that one off though.

 

Also thinking I could show some METAR information for each ATC and/or pilot location. Anyway, it's just a tiny start. And, I'll see how motivated I am about continuing to do anything else.

 

UI Prototype by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

[Kieran Samuel Cross]

Looking good!

 

I too got bored, and motivated myself to start something new. Maybe there should be a project's subforum on here, where people can post their projects and their progress, would be interesting.

 

 

(Sorry Ross, I did steal the sector boundaries from VAT-SPY, whilst testing it worked!)

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

I agree. Not a bad idea. Looks like you and I are were on a very similar path. I only devoted about a couple hours yesterday on this, most of which was developing the backend API to p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] the data available from VATSIM. The UI was a very simple WPF front end to just verify and display the data I made available in the API.

 

I'm not sure how much time I will continue to put in to it though. I work fulltime as a developer, and would prefer to spend my free time doing something other than more software development, like flying (as opposed to working on a new app).

 

Good luck with yours. It's always interesting to see what other people can come up with. Looking good.

[Cillian O Luing 1032602]

I agree about a projects forum.

 

I know of http://www.accomeap-project.com/ and https://vatmm.org/ which both deserve more recognition than they're getting.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Couldn't help myself. Working on it still. I have finally put a good 8 hours into it now. Decent functionality, especially for finding airport controller frequencies before being in range of an airport.

 

2017-07-31 (7) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (6) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (5) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (4) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (3) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (2) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-07-31 (1) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

I've been having a good time building features on this application. I'm completely open to ideas for new features.

 

Currently it does a few things that aren't completely obvious.

 

1. It tracks which airports have been opened for display of details. This keeps me from having to pound away at a web service to fetch basic details that I already know after hitting the service previously. These details files could be shared among users. As the details are fetched and stored for an airport, the name is [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociated with the code on the airports list on the left side of the screen, and will always be there after subsequent restarts of the application.

2. Right now it is tracking (when it's running) all the way points for every pilot on the system. That's building a very large file of history, so that's going to be changed to only track for users that you choose.

3. I am using a static map API from google to fetch the maps. I place pins for each pilot who is [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociated with an airport being viewed (I.e. it is their departure or arrival airport). I'd like to try to improve and embed a map that is not static.

4. The frequencies for controllers at any given airport can be seen BEFORE you are anywhere near that airport while flying VATSIM. This has come in handy for me this past week, since I can start pre-programming my frequencies in to the radio stack in the game prior to being in range of the controllers.

5. You can very rapidly switch back/forth between the airport view and the user/controller view. You don't need to do multi-step searches to return right back to where you were before clicking a link to see details about one or the other.

6. ATIS and METAR data is displayed when it is available on both the airport screen and the pilot screen (part of the from/to for the pilot flight plan)

 

Anyway, it's a work in progress...

 

2017-08-06 by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Man! Have I been having some fun. Two additional screenshots. One is a "high level" overlay of the total VATSIM status. The other an example of activities at a given airport, KATL in this case. ILS localizers, ATC and Pilots are all available for display and analysis. Having a great time.

 

Implemented a relatively complex weather updating engine today as well. Had to find the right balance between web service availability and the # of calls allowed to these services in a 24 hour period. I cache quite a lot of data as a method for avoiding unnecessary calls to the same service in a short period of time (in which case the weather conditions probably haven't change much anyway).

 

Give me ideas, please! At some point I want to make this available to the VATSIM community for consumption, but would feel better with a more complete product.

 

2017-08-12 (2) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

 

2017-08-12 (1) by Chris Kirkman, on Flickr

[Thimo Koolen]

The ILS has the frequency, maybe it's an idea to add the course as well.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

How do you mean? Are you saying showing the flight plan for each individual pilot? If yes, I could easily show this as a tooltip over the pilot's name? If I'm off on this [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umption let me know what you mean.

 

The localizers are written such that they are user configurable. There is an XML file for each airport where the user can add whatever runway/localizer they wish, and the software detects that file and loads up the localizer grid with that data.

[Morten Jelle]

He means the runway course - the course you have to set, so you line up correctly with the ILS.

[Bradley Grafelman]

He means the runway course

Well, more precisely, he means the final approach course. Not all ILSes are aligned with their target runway's centerline. ILS 04R at LFMN, for example, is offset by 2 degrees. This would also account for approach types where the FAC is more often misaligned from runway heading, such as LDA or VOR approaches.

[Chris Kirkman 1396980]

Are you guys referring to the final approach fix and slope angle? I am not an experienced ILS pilot, just a flight sim enthusiast who is also a software developer...so, I may need some [Mod - Happy Thoughts]istance in understanding what is being requested in this feature.

 

Is this something I can find on an ILS approach chart? I'm not entirely familiar with those charts, aside from knowing what runway and localizer frequency is [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned to it.

[Removed]

Hello Chris,

 

yes, the approch course can be found on ILS approach charts.

 

It is the course the pilot will be flying when tracking the center of the localizer inbound while on the approach.

 

ILS runway 4 does not necessarily mean that the localizer centerline (and runway) is exactly aligned at 040°. At La Guardia as an example, the approach course of the ILS runway 4 approach is 044°.

 

http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1708/00289IL4.PDF

 

The final approach fix and glide slope, though certainly interesting information, are unrelated to the approach course.