vAMSYS smartCARS Policy Change

[Lukas Jankauskas]

Further to our communication in 2020 on Pegasus release, we are now announcing end of life for smartCARS support.

As of 22nd April, we will render no support for PIREPs filed using smartCARS. Previous PIREPS filed using smartCARS will remain open-able at least until vAMSYS v4 and will retain scoring/processing support until 22nd April. 

Past this date, we will offer no ongoing smartCARS support. If you have not already – it is now definitely the time to upgrade to Pegasus – our in-house tracker. 

If you have Issues with Pegasus, you can report them using the support links in Pegasus download page on your VA. If you have not installed Pegasus yet – visit Resources section of your Virtual Airline.

As of 22nd April, pilots will not be able to login to smartCARS and file PIREPs bar several VAs we have extended support agreement with, who we will work with, in due course, to retire smartCARS functionality. To avoid any doubt, VAs in question use their own trackers using smartCARS technology – if you track your flights using smartCARS application, you are not in the special category and must upgrade to Pegasus immediately. Pilots of these exempted VAs will be able to use smartCARS functionality and file PIREPs, but they will not receive new scorers/parsers utilising Pegasus technology. We do expect to retire all smartCARS APIs by the release of v4.

We receive hundreds upon hundreds of PIREPs a day filed using Pegasus and smartCARS PIREPs are almost non-existent – we strongly urge the use of Pegasus to file your flights and report any and all issues so we could address them.

Team vAMSYS