SPAACARS 10.19 Released
1 day 1 hour ago - 1 day 1 hour ago #17921
by jer029
John Rogers
Webmaster
SPAACARS 10.19 Released was created by jer029
Pilots, I've updated SPAACARS again to address some errors with version 10.18.
Summary
MSFS 2024 users will be able to import flight plans from the flight simulator. This was giving errors with 10.18 for MSFS 2024.
All versions of MSFS will likely have improved Orig and Dest locations on the "Current Flights" map link on our main webpage with this latest version,
The newest version is located under "Downloads" from the Main Menu, under the "Enhancements" link, and then the "Utilities: link, and it's likely at the bottom of the "Utilities" file list as SPAACARS10.19
The long version
The major issue with MSFS 2024 was that it no longer included Lat Lon data in the flight plans once they're loaded in the simulator, as it did in previous versions. Even if the flight plan being loaded into 2024 had them, 2024 sheds this data once loaded into the sim and it's therefore not available to access by SPAACARS.
The Simbrief imported flight plan does have that information, and since it's imported directly into SPAACARS, the Orig and Dest Lat-Lon data is accessible, but this had to be converted from decimal to DMS format to be used for our flight map.
Unfortunately, the Lat-Lon information is not available when SPAACARS pulls flight plan data from MSFS2024. I have found a website that provides an API that allows SPAACARS to make calls to the site and retrieve the airport data, including Lat-Lon. This is converted from JSON to XML and then converted from Decimal to DMS format also.
Since this airport site appears to be privately operated, I'm not certain how long it's been in operation or how long it will continue to be in operation. It's possible that, if the data is no longer available, this will again affect our flight plan imports. However, you can still close the error messages and manually add any missing data to SPAACARS and start logging the flight as usual.
There is also a simple database table of airport data I've added to our local server that SPAACARS had been drawing from if it didn't find the Lat-Lon data, but I'm not sure if that's still working at this point, and there were lots of missing airports. However, there is an area in VAHQ for managers to check for existing airports and add missing airports to that database, so in the event the current method no longer works, I can revert... or at least make sure that our local airport database table can take over again.
Happy flying,
John
Summary
MSFS 2024 users will be able to import flight plans from the flight simulator. This was giving errors with 10.18 for MSFS 2024.
All versions of MSFS will likely have improved Orig and Dest locations on the "Current Flights" map link on our main webpage with this latest version,
The newest version is located under "Downloads" from the Main Menu, under the "Enhancements" link, and then the "Utilities: link, and it's likely at the bottom of the "Utilities" file list as SPAACARS10.19
The long version
The major issue with MSFS 2024 was that it no longer included Lat Lon data in the flight plans once they're loaded in the simulator, as it did in previous versions. Even if the flight plan being loaded into 2024 had them, 2024 sheds this data once loaded into the sim and it's therefore not available to access by SPAACARS.
The Simbrief imported flight plan does have that information, and since it's imported directly into SPAACARS, the Orig and Dest Lat-Lon data is accessible, but this had to be converted from decimal to DMS format to be used for our flight map.
Unfortunately, the Lat-Lon information is not available when SPAACARS pulls flight plan data from MSFS2024. I have found a website that provides an API that allows SPAACARS to make calls to the site and retrieve the airport data, including Lat-Lon. This is converted from JSON to XML and then converted from Decimal to DMS format also.
Since this airport site appears to be privately operated, I'm not certain how long it's been in operation or how long it will continue to be in operation. It's possible that, if the data is no longer available, this will again affect our flight plan imports. However, you can still close the error messages and manually add any missing data to SPAACARS and start logging the flight as usual.
There is also a simple database table of airport data I've added to our local server that SPAACARS had been drawing from if it didn't find the Lat-Lon data, but I'm not sure if that's still working at this point, and there were lots of missing airports. However, there is an area in VAHQ for managers to check for existing airports and add missing airports to that database, so in the event the current method no longer works, I can revert... or at least make sure that our local airport database table can take over again.
Happy flying,
John
John Rogers
Webmaster
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