So many plans with no type....what gives?

[Scott Clifford]

Hey pilots, I get the VFR traffic not bothering to file flight plans but what gives with so many IFR plans with no aircraft type? Is there some pre-file process out there that omits this information or are pilots getting lazy? The number seems to be increasing. Just wondering if there is a technical reason or a software malfunctioning out there.

[Andreas Fuchs]

I haven't come across many flightplans not containing a valid aircraft type. Actually, it should not be possible to submit an FPL without a valid type identifier. Would you have some examples?

[Trevor Hannant]

If you've got VATSpy or another tool and can sort the list of pilots by Equipment, you can see plenty there:

[Andreas Fuchs]

Aha! This might be an issue with how Vatspy is processing flightplan data, I suspect. Or am I wrong?

I just randomly picked "DLH5MF" from the list and checked it out in Qutescoop:

I suspect that all pilots with filed plans also included their aircraft types, but for some reason they do not get displayed correctly in all applications. Maybe an issue with the new ICAO equipment codes?

[Trevor Hannant]

I've seen it on Euroscope also so not sure what the issue is.   Have had to request an aircraft type on a few occasions when controlling

When next controlling, if I come across one I'll post an example here.

Edited December 9, 2021 at 08:55 PM by Trevor Hannant

[Kirk Christie]

Vatspy was set up to change an ICAO equipment code to a FAA one.

[Mike Teague]

aircraft type isnt even in the flightplan is it? you select type and equipment suffix when you connect to the network. the flightplan is separate

for awhile the server i used wasnt showing the H/ heavy prefix either. then it started working again after a few days...  who knows

 

[Alistair Thomson]

1 hour ago, Mike Teague said:

aircraft type isnt even in the flightplan is it?

Yes, it is, in the ICAO form and therefore also in the official FAA form. But if Kirk is correct then VatSpy needs to be fixed.

[Ross Carlson]

17 hours ago, Kirk Christie said:

Vatspy was set up to change an ICAO equipment code to a FAA one.

VAT-Spy doesn't do any conversion, it just reads the value from the VATSIM data feed. The feed includes both ICAO and FAA formats.

I took a look at the raw data in the feed, and the FAA value is blank for these aircraft. So it's an issue with the feed. I've pointed it out to the devs in case it's not already a known issue.

Edited December 10, 2021 at 06:29 PM by Ross Carlson

[Alistair Thomson]

It would have surprised me if you hadn't done it right! Not your style! :)

[Mike Evans]

TL;DR: This is clients filing an invalid equipment code, and the server not translating it to ICAO because it doesn't know how to do it.. this was fixed a couple weeks ago, it just hasn't been pushed yet. If clients filed the correct equipment suffixes, we wouldn't be seeing it. So every time you see it between now & when the fix is pushed, assume the pilot doesn't actually know their equipment & proceed accordingly 😛 

[Trevor Hannant]

8 hours ago, Mike Teague said:

aircraft type isnt even in the flightplan is it? you select type and equipment suffix when you connect to the network. the flightplan is separate

for awhile the server i used wasnt showing the H/ heavy prefix either. then it started working again after a few days...  who knows

 

It's not in the flight plan if you file via vPilot - but then it should (Ross can correct me) file what you connect as.

The prefile on MyVATSIM does have the type field:

https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/flightplan

Of course, there's no validation there so...