I flew to the East, Propilot was flying Southwest

[EHM-1749 Hector]

Last night when getting ready to enjoy Paris at night, I found out that I was in Tahiti.
I was flying EHM-H1157, KATL-LFPG. Instead PP was flying EHM-H1158, KATL-NTAA.
How did this happen? Not a clue. I am 100% sure that I picked flight H1157 from the Logger, clicked the Propilot Flight and it was accepted. Had I had EHM-H1158 booked I think the system was supposed to reject H1157.
Would it be possible that I picked H1158 instead of H1157? No way because when I open FLogger I normally write the destination in the window so only the flights for that destination are shown. From Atlanta to Paris there is only one Hxxxx flight.
The big question: How the system approved a flight that landed 8,000 nm apart? I remember once when I had to land at the alternate because the original destination was completely fogged up. The alternate was 30 nm apart and the flight was accepted. I posted the comment in the forum and I was told that the system can accept a different airport up to 30nm apart.
Consequences?
1- I have now the record for the fastest flight between Atlanta and Tahiti.
2- The database for flight H1158 is distorted regarding time and fuel used. I would recommend to delete this flight to keep the integrity of the database.
3- I have a very furious girlfriend waiting in Paris.


Finally, because the problem I still have reporting the flight in the IVAO system, I accidentally corfirmed it twice. So, please delete PIREP 3672 in the IVAO system.

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

Hi Hector,

Sorry for this sad story... of which I can answer to some parts.

The most disturbing of it being the wrong flight selected. The reason is that in FL3, when you press the "ProPilot" button, WHATEVER flight, airport or aircraft you had previously selected are overriden with the flight, airports and aircraft of your booked flight.

I admit this is not very intuitive, especially that you are prompted to confirm "this flight", although this does not mean the flight you see on screen. This bit will look differently in FL4, but this is "almost implemented" for the moment.


The other big problem you mention is already solved in FL4. There is now a check whether the flight - as performed in FS - starts and ends at the good airports for the flight one has selected. This was one thing I tried to solve since my earliest days in the project...

However your misadventure gives me a further idea: should the FL warn IN FLIGHT when the pilot is heading in an obviously wrong direction? A subject of debate, especially the part where "obvious" is to define.

At this time, the only warning a pilot can have comes from the ACARS page within the site, which would have clearly shown the misunderstanding. I use it sometimes, but not always.

What more can I say? Sorry for the IVAO flight and definitely sorry for the furious girlfriend. Virtually furious, I dare hope...

Now about deleting the flights, this may be necessary at IVAO if someone picky sticks his nose in our PIREPS (but I leave this to Murray to decide, I think he knows better). However I would not delete the flight from our database, I have seen times and fuel burnt way stranger than yours.

Andrei

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Just to cover the IVAO part, you may not have flown the flight you meant to, but you did fly a flight nonetheless, so you and the VA can be credited with that flight. If, as you suggest, you submitted it to IVAO twice, that's a different matter and we'll do our best to ensure one of them is not validated.

[EHM-1749 Hector]

Hi Andrei,
just confirmed your answer. I booked the flight from Tahiti to Atlanta. Then started FS and FLogger. I then chose the flight H1187 from Paris to Atlanta with the MD11 and it was accepted. When clicked on ProPilot it asked if I wanted to fly the flight and I said Yes. It then showed flight H1188 from Tahiti to Atlanta. BTW, it said that Tahiti was in the Czech Republic. A note for the next version.

So, I agree that I for sure had the flight booked to Tahiti instead of Paris. I was flying to Paris the day before but about midway we had a power loss and had to abort the flight. Maybe when I re-booked I clicked on Tahiti instead of Paris.
Maybe it was secretly on purpose or maybe my german neighbor is getting closer.

Murray, taking advantage of the subject: what can I do to avoid manual IVAO PIREPs filling. I don't know the reason but every time I send the PIREP it says that my EHM 1749 doesn't exist.

Best Regards,
Hector

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Murray, taking advantage of the subject: what can I do to avoid manual IVAO PIREPs filling. I don't know the reason but every time I send the PIREP it says that my EHM 1749 doesn't exist.

As previously demonstrated, as far as the management tools for the IVAO VA are concerned, you do exist, so could I politely suggest you get in touch with the IVAO membership department?

[EHM-1749 Hector]

Murray,
I really don't think the problem is with IVAO because as soon as I fill the PIREP manually it is accepted. The problems seems to be in the EHM database with my ID. Whenever I click to send the PIREP to IVAO I get the following message:



Then after I fill the PIREP manually I send it without problems.
Like I said before this has been going on probably on the last 6 months.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Wow, that is freaky, isn't it?

I'll check again what our end of the VA system says, then as I still think it's an IVAO database issue, get in contact with them with all the screenshots we now have to prove the point.

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

This problem looks very familiar to me... and I always thought it is an IVAO problem. I had the same first digit misteriously disappearing from the pilots id when navigating from one screen to another.

So maybe it is the same problem. Hector, by chance is your manually filled PIREP still pending so that I can check how validation goes? In fact, I'd better look

[EDIT]
I checked and the flight was there all right... but I was wrong. Indeed on all (pending) PIREPs but Hector's the first digit of the pilot id is missing, and unfortunately it looks like we validated lots of flights having this problem. However, I checked and this id mismatch has absolutely no impact on the pilot flight time counter, these flights are linked to the right IVAO account whatever the VA pilot id.

However we should fix that, it looks like the first digit is lost when the PIREP is submitted. I don't know much about  how this submittal is done, but soon I will have to in order to implement it in FL4. Any specification on this topic, Murray?

Andrei

[EHM-0654 Murray]

...
However we should fix that, it looks like the first digit is lost when the PIREP is submitted. I don't know much about  how this submittal is done, but soon I will have to in order to implement it in FL4. Any specification on this topic, Murray?

No idea mate. I would hope that somewhere on IVAO there's some documentation for VA system PIREP submission, but knowing IVAO... May be another case of 'Sharking to see what v3 is doing.

EDIT: Well, I can't be sure if it applies to how v3 sends IVAO PIREPs, but Gustavo H has made the follow documentation available:

[ http://www.ivao.aero/vasystem/admin/Pirep_Send_Info.asp ]

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

Sorry but as far as I understand this documentation refers to the opposite scenario: the pilot FIRST fills a PIREP on IVAO site, then using some VA-configurable information the data is sent to the VA. So it's also a single-submit scenario, but it requires IVAO.

This is not applicable to EHM as long as we do not force every flight to happen on IVAO - which we are not.

If you don't have any other info, I will try to search their site + forums to see whether such information was ever published. Last resort, I will write the IVAO dev department to see what they think about it.

However, if the official position of IVAO is NOT to support PIREP submission from the VA sites to their site, in this case I am afraid we won't have this feature in FL4. I prefer to let it out rather than develop on an unsupported interface that can change at any moment without notice, resulting in our system to fail.

Andrei