In real world aviation ACARS (an acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) is a digital datalink system for transmission of short messages between aircraft and ground stations via airband radio or satellite. In flight-sim terms it typically refers to client software that pilots in Virtual Airlines use to log active flights details (progress, position, aircraft state etc) and send that information to a back-end database.

Our ACARS client was built in-house in 2013 and following an extensive Beta testing period went into production in December of that year. Our staff use it to log flights they have booked or are assigned through our rostering service, and the data logged is then available for their own reference and for training and HR purposes.

Current list of features includes:

• GUI resembling Smiths FMC
• position reporting (alt, IAS, HDG, lat/lon, distance to go, zulu time, transponder)
• aircraft state (model, fuel, flap position, gear, brakes, lights, NAV freqs)
• flight phase detection (Gate, Taxi, Takeoff, Cruise etc)
• flight logging (duration, distance, fuel burn, block time/OOOI stats)
• integration with existing VA database for retrieval of flight schedule, aircraft and destination data
• METAR lookups for dep, dest, alt and arbitrary ICAO codes
• pilot authentication and authorisation
• pilot specific security token exchange for client requests
• blocking of slew mode and in-flight refuel
• version control mechanism to prompt in client when optional or compulsory client upgrades are available
• back-end web view of position report and live map display
• compatible with FS9, FSX and P3D
• connections to sim via FSUIPC and works via WideFS