Why can somebody sign in with a callsign I pre-filed a plan?

[Robert Lee]

I pre-filed a flight plan and somebody has logged in with that callsign, no flight plan, and now I cannot log in? How can somebody sign in with a callsign I pre-filed a flight plan for? Thank you. Bob

[Robert Lee]

When he logged off the system removed my prefiled flight plan! I know he did this accidentally and just happened to want to fly the same route as me, but it should not let him login in the first place, right?

[Don Desfosse]

A plan is just a plan, not a guaranteed reservation. First come, first served.

[Robert Lee]

A plan is just a plan, not a guaranteed reservation. First come, first served.

But if I pre-file no one else can pre-file with that callsign it will say callsign in use. Why one way but not the other? I should login first as the callsign before setting up the plan then in the future?

[Philipp Edlich]

The server does only check if the callsign is currently logged in. Prefiling, just like ATC booking, is just a declaration of the intention to do something. If there is a conflict, we need to do one simple thing: Talk to each other. It seems that you have done that in the case you described.

 

Maybe the next version of the FSD-software (FSD is the protocol on the VATSIM-servers) will have a something like that implemented if you ask the dev guys kindly (or even help them coding).

[Kirk Christie]

I should login first as the callsign before setting up the plan then in the future?

 

No, not unless you plan to file the flight plan via the pilot client, because prefile will check to see if the callsign is in use, if you are logged in, it is then in use and wont let you file it.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi Rob,

 

you were just a bit unlucky. I never had this before and I pre-file in 99% of cases, sometimes 1 hour before actually logging on to VATSIM. Should it happen again, another option for you would be to append a letter to your callsign and file it again, e.g. UAL313 UAL313A

 

And again, it is a rare occurrence.

[Brad Littlejohn]

Hi Rob,

 

you were just a bit unlucky. I never had this before and I pre-file in 99% of cases, sometimes 1 hour before actually logging on to VATSIM. Should it happen again, another option for you would be to append a letter to your callsign and file it again, e.g. UAL313 UAL313A

 

And again, it is a rare occurrence.

 

But to also put it another way, it is more congruent with the real world. I don't see it much in the US, because most airline don't tie the callsign to the route the callsign uses in flight, but I do see that more in Europe, and especially the UK.

 

For example, take VIR43 and VIR44 (EGKK-KLAS and KLAS-EGKK). Those same callsigns and flight numbers are used for that same flight, every day, regardless of frequency of the flight. So we'll see more than one of these flights active and en route every day, because the first flight hasn't landed by the time the second flight has departed. So we'll see a VIR43K landing at KLAS while a VIR43W may have departed EGKK.

 

Keep in mind, they are both the same flight, with the same flight number, and same equipment used. So adding a letter to it doesn't change the route or flight flown, but just the unique callsign in use, because even in the real world, you can't have two callsigns being used simultaneously in the system.

 

BL.