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What is FTG Acars?

ACARS stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. FTG ACARS is a program which records flight data from MS Flight Simulator and sends reports to our "virtual airlines." All members must use this program to submit their flight reports (PIREPs) after each flight to earn credit. This page should help those members who are new to FTG ACARS. Hopefully this will help you get up to speed quickly and with as little hassle as possible.

FTG ACARS is setup to look and function like a generic Flight Management Computer. If you use PMDG, Level-D, PSS or other advanced aircraft panels FTG ACARS functionality should be somewhat familiar. At the bottom there is a scratch pad where you type in the data. And to input data from the scratchpad you use the Line Select Key (LSK) next to the data entry point. Simple.

Also please note this only shows the basics, this doesn't cover all the features in FTG ACARS. This tutorial only covers the basics to complete a flight with FTG ACARS, Briefing & Prefile features.

Requirements

First and foremost FTG ACARS is only compatible with FS2004 and FSX. In addition a program called FSUIPC is also required. FSUIPC is a program that was created so that 3rd party programs could communicate and read information from Flight Simulator. It does other stuff as well but that is one of FSUIPC's core functions. Many weather programs, ATC clients and ACARS programs use FSUIPC to read and send information to flight simulator. So before you do anything make sure you have the latest version of FSUIPC installed for FS2004 or FSX. There is a freeware version of FSUIPC and this will work fine with FTG ACARS.

FSUIPC can be found here: http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html

Install FTG ACARS

Go to the ACARS page at any of our VAs. You can find it in Operations Center -> Flight Desk -> ACARS. It's the same program for all FTG virtual airlines. So just login to the Ops center go to Flight Desk and you'll see the link to the ACARS page. There you will see the link to download FTG ACARS. There's really nothing to the installation. Just run through it, click next, next all the way through until it's finished. By default it will be installed in C:\Program Files\FTG-ACARS v2.

The main program in that folder is called FTG-ACARS.EXE, I created a shortcut for this file and placed it next to my FS shortcut on my desktop. Ok that's it. Now lets do a flight including the Pre-Flight process.

Pre-Flight

Once you know where you want to fly you will need to lookup the real world schedule. For this example I'm going to do a flight from Hong Kong to Taipei with Cathay Pacific. The great thing about our setup at FTG is the tight integration between our web services and FTG ACARS. You will see just how in a moment.

Ok so first lets lookup the schedule for the flight I will be simulating in FS. We go to Schedule page at any FTG VA or even the main FTG page, they all use the same search engine. So in this case I went here:

http://www.flyingtigersgroup.org/ATPFINDROUTE.asp

The search engine is quite powerful. You can search for routes from/to any specific airports, even narrow it down by airline and even aircraft type. You can also search for routes from One region to another for example Asia to Europe. Or say you want to fly from London Heathrow but you can't make up your mind where you want to fly. So just type in EGLL into the Dep ICAO box and hit the random flight key. Even flight Type like Normal, Classic and Cargo flights can be searched.

So anyway as you see above for this tutorial flight I'm flying from Hong Kong to Taipei, so the respective ICAO codes are VHHH for departure and RCTP for Arrival & we're flying Cathay Pacific. So you can see all that info in the search boxes, and I just click on Search to see all the real world schedules for this route.

This shows all the scheduled flights and I've picked out the one I want to fly, CX530 departing at 0910 local time and scheduled to arrive in Taipei at 1055. It also indicates the aircraft to use in this case the Airbus A330. Next we'll use the Briefing so we can pre-file this flight with FTG ACARS. This way we will not have to write anything down as it will all be loaded up and ready to use without having to manually input any data. But if you prefer you can write down the schedule information and manually enter all the initial flight data into FTG ACARS. Although I have no idea why anyone would want to do it manually when this prefile process is so much easier.

Ok next lets look at the briefing for my chosen schedule. This is where we can prefile any chosen schedule to FTG ACARS. On the very right of the schedule, next to duration. Click on B to open the Briefing.

This is the fist briefing page. Here I selected the aircraft I'm going to use for this flight, B-LAH. Sometimes the Choose IATA box will appear sometimes it won't. This is all technical and I wont get into it in detail; it has to do with the way some airlines display their schedule info. If for some reason Choose IATA doesn't work then most likely you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or lower. Unfortunately it's not compatible with many Web 2.0 applications so try it with Firefox. It should work with IE8 in the future.

Very important! For each briefing tab make sure you place a check in the check box next to Read in the lower right corner. This just confirms you've reviewed each specific briefing page. Ok next we look at the route tab.

Ok the Briefing Route tab page. Picture explains it all. The reason we don't have company routes? We have to build those up for all 20,000+ routes in our database. That will take a lot of work and time. But if you see a company route available it's a nice feature. Next Weather briefing tab.

Weather stuff. Don't forget the check in the Read box. That's it! Now all you have to do is click on the "Prefile this to ACARS" link and this flight will be pre-filed for you.

Ok that's it!  Now it is time to start Flight Simulator so we can fly this route. Personally, before I started this flight I used FSBUILD to create the flight plan, you can use whatever. Then I downloaded real world weather with ActiveSky6.5 from Hifi Simulations. Hopefully all of our members will use real world weather even if it's the live weather built into FS.

The flight with FTG ACARS

At this point forget about FTG ACARS. Startup flightsim and setup the flight. Select aircraft, setup departure time, usually 10min before scheduled departure is best to give you time to setup. Then flightplan, weather etc. Then start the flight.

**IMPORTANT** <-----

Do not start FTG ACARS before any of this.

Once FS starts and you're sitting in the cockpit. Make sure your aircraft is sitting at the gate with the PARKING BRAKES ON and all ENGINES OFF. If the engines are running, shut them off. This is important or you'll screw up FTG ACARS.

3 important things before even thinking about starting FTG ACARS.

1. Your aircraft is sitting at the gate or ramp.

2. Parking Brake is ON.

3. All engines OFF (APU can be running, don't worry about that just the main engines must be OFF)

Once these conditions have been met then you can start FTG ACARS. I usually do all my cockpit preparation, get clearance and pre flight checks. Then a minute or two before pushback I'll start FTG ACARS.

Ok all conditions to start FTG ACARS are in order so lets start FTG ACARS! This what you'll see.

The initial screen. This is where you enter your pilot ID and password to login (the same login for our website) . You can choose to STORE LOGIN INFO so you don't have to enter it every time. Also the top right shows the version of FTG ACARS that you have installed. This image shows 2.92.  If you see the message from the server indicates a new version for example 3.0 and you still have 2.92 then it's time to upgrade. But if the server message and the version match then don't worry about it.

Your password is your FTG password, which could be different from you message board password. Check your profile to make sure. Also, not only is it case sensitive, but ACARS will not recognize certain characters, such as !@#$%&*, etc. So, make sure you have a good password before trying to log in to ACARS.

Now click CONNECT to start FTG ACARS. At this point it checks to see if your login info is correct and if you have any pre-flights from the briefing.

In this example FTG ACARS detected that I had 2 prefiles. In this example first I deleted the prefile for CX450 because I'm not going to use it. Then I clicked the dash next to my prefile that I wanted to use CX530 VHHH-RCTP.  If you didn't do a prefile then you would select Start New Flight at this point.

Thanks to the Prefile all the flight information has been pre-loaded so I don't have to enter all the data manually. At this point double check the flight data. If it is incorrect, fix it. Just type it in and click the dash next to the data you want to change. If you don't do a prefile you would have to enter all this data manually. So you would have to type in "VHHH" click the dash next to to DEP. Then "RCTP" next to ARR. Then "330-300" for aircraft. Then "CX530" for Flight Number, etc, etc. That's why prefile is great!

Then to actually tell FTG ACARS to start recording this flight click on INDEX/CONNECT To FS. That's it. FTG ACARS will begin to record all the important events of your flight. This is what it will look like:

When it is departure time and you are ready for pushback. Release parking break, start push back (SHIFT-P), then start your engines. This is how FTG ACARS detects that the flight started.

Oh! You should hear some kind of announcement start. You can set these up for various airlines, languages or even turn this feature off if you don't like it. But that's for the advanced tutorial.

At this point leave FTG ACARS alone! Forget about it. Don't touch it with your noobie fingers until you've finished the flight.

Focus on flying your aircraft not playing with FTG ACARS.

LIVE ACARS?

This is where you can see all the other FTG members flying live. All those lovely tiger heads to distract you from your flight. Just click on each individual tiger head and you'll see their flight data that's being sent from their FTG ACARS to our server.  Pretty cool! Where is this? The main FTG page under LiveACARS, www.flyingtigersgroup.org or click here: http://www.flyingtigersgroup.org/ACARSFTG/liveacars.php The page will automatically update every few minutes.

Once you get the hang of it, with a prefile it takes me about 10 seconds to start FTG ACARS for most flights. It's really simple!

I finished my flight, now what?

Did you?

3 key things you must do to finish a flight.

1. Taxi and park at the gate or where ATC directs you to park.

2. Parking brake is ON.

3. Engines are OFF.

Now your flight is over. This is how FTG ACARS detects that your flight is over.

At this point you can even shut off FS. It doesn't matter. FTG ACARS has the data for your flight. It will look something like this:

Times, etc. Just click NEXT PAGE to continue.

I was screwing around with this tutorial flight so the data is off, no matter, I'm showing you the process. Next you'll see my horrible landing vertical speed. Don't laugh. :P Click NEXT PAGE.

Yeah yeah! Actually anything less than -500 vertical speed you don't have to be embarrassed. FTG ACARS has caught people landing at -15000 VS!

Ok enough small talk.

All the data on these pages can be modified or corrected. For example if the cruise altitude is wrong. Just fix it. Type in the correct cruise altitude say 350 and click the dash next to it. Same for cruise MACH.

Ultimately the responsibility is the pilots. It's up to you to double check and make sure the data that FTG ACARS recorded is correct. So double check all the data in FTG ACARS before you submit it.

Here you can type in comments about the flight. Then click SEND. Wait a few seconds. Sometimes it might take a while depending on server load. Just wait for the confirmation message before you shut off FTG ACARS. That's it! You should see the flight displayed in your pilot logbook in Operations Center -> Crew Center -> Logbook

This may seem like a lot of info at first but once you get the hang of it this process will actually save you time. You don't have to write anything down or fill out any forms on our website.

FAIL

What happens if you try to send the PIREP from FTG ACARS and it doesn't go through? Or what if the server is down?  Don't worry! In the FTG ACARS program folder there is a program called FTG-ACARS Logbookviewer.exe

Just open the program, log in and you should see all your PIREPs in there. This is where you could fix your PIREP and resubmit it in case management rejected it for some reason (don't resubmit PIREPS when management specifically tells you not to resubmit the rejected PIREP in question or you could loose your account). Or if the server was down you can send it through this program when the server is up and running again.

For more support please visit the FTG ACARS Support sub forum here:

LINK