What's New

ACARS 3 is a complete rebuild of the desktop application and flight workflow. It adds native macOS and Linux applications, a map-first interface, richer flight planning, live airline communications, and a detailed post-flight debrief.

This page covers the changes since the 2.2 release line. Some connected features depend on support from your virtual airline.

Before you upgrade

New in ACARS 3

Windows, macOS, and Linux applications

ACARS now runs natively on Windows x64, Apple Silicon macOS, and Linux x64. X-Plane is supported on all three platforms. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024, Prepar3D, FSX, and FS9 remain Windows-only.

The new desktop shell adds native window controls, file pickers, operating system themes, single-instance protection, and vmsacars:// links. Window size, maximized state, and the always-on-top preference persist between launches.

Linux is distributed as a self-contained AppImage. macOS and Linux packages include their platform-specific X-Plane plugins.

New map-first workspace

The main window is now organized around one persistent flight map. Panels open around the map instead of replacing it.

1. Pin commonly used destinations to a customizable dock.
2. Open flight selection, briefing, weather, messages, logs, events, reports, settings, and airline operations without leaving the map.
3. Resume an unfinished flight from the dashboard, or discard it after an explicit confirmation.
4. Follow flight progress and use flight lifecycle actions from the enroute panel.
5. See unread state for communications and operational activity.

Flight search and planning

The flight workflow now handles scheduled flights, bids, and manual flights in one place.

1. Search scheduled flights with pagination.
2. Move between flight search and Your Bids without losing either list's search, page, or scroll position.
3. Use a dedicated bids-only workflow when configured by the airline.
4. Automatically open the only bid on a bids-only airline.
5. See server-side bid changes without manually refreshing the page.
6. Preview a flight's route before opening its briefing.
7. See airline branding and SimBrief availability on flight rows.
8. Create a manual flight with paged fleet loading.
9. Choose a subfleet first, then search its aircraft by registration, type, or name.

Rebuilt briefing

The briefing brings the flight plan, aircraft, fares, custom PIREP fields, and operational information into one workflow.

1. Review SimBrief plan, fuel, weight, route, and time sections before or during the flight.
2. Frame the planned route on the map beside the briefing panel.
3. Review departure, arrival, and enroute weather.
4. Open forecast hazards and notices directly on the map.
5. Save SimBrief, VATSIM, and Hoppie details for connected planning and messaging features.
6. Request a PDC using VATSIM ATIS capability information when available.
7. Use metric or imperial display units.

SimBrief parsing now accepts both phpvms-wrapped and raw OFP documents. Alternate airports and airport aliases are retained for route and airport resolution.

Flight automation

1. Automatically start a flight when the simulator and required fields are ready.
2. See when automatic start is waiting for the simulator.
3. Pause or cancel the start countdown.
4. Automatically end the flight after arrival.
5. Automatically file the PIREP after the debrief countdown.
6. See the departure countdown and taxi-out difference from scheduled departure.

Each automation option can be enabled separately in Settings.

New live flight map

The new MapLibre map combines the planned route, live aircraft, flown track, weather, and online airline traffic.

1. Fly over a globe with 3D terrain and hillshade.
2. Choose satellite, terrain, or street map styles.
3. See day and night imagery with sun-driven terrain, building, atmosphere, and aircraft lighting.
4. See urban, road, and place lights after dark.
5. Draw the route and flown track at altitude.
6. Fly an animated 3D aircraft with working gear and flap positions.
7. Use an airline-provided livery when available, with a bundled generic livery as the fallback.
8. Show airport and gate labels with reduced map clutter.

The camera has Free, Follow, and Cinematic modes. Follow mode can chase and recenter the aircraft. Cinematic mode changes shots with the flight phase. Manual camera movement pauses automatic control instead of fighting the pilot.

Before departure, the map frames the pilot's airport. When the simulator connects, it moves to the parked aircraft.

Weather and hazards

1. Review departure and arrival conditions in the briefing.
2. Follow waypoint weather, METARs, and hazards from a permanent route-weather panel.
3. See hazard altitude and details on the map.
4. Select a weather notice to move the map to its location.

Pilot communications

Airlines with realtime services enabled gain a shared communications workspace.

1. See who is online, what they are flying, and their current flight phase and position.
2. Chat with other pilots in the airline feed.
3. Keep message history, reactions, unread marks, and the pilot's own roster entry.
4. Recover durable messages missed during a disconnect.
5. Keep a separate pilot-to-dispatch conversation.
6. Log on to Hoppie CPDLC, send free-text messages, and respond to uplinks.
7. See other online airline aircraft on the map.
8. Send contextual and emoji interactions to another pilot.

Dispatcher workspace

Dispatcher and administrator accounts can open a separate native dispatcher window.

1. Follow live airline traffic on a dedicated map.
2. Select an aircraft and review its current flight data.
3. Use resizable roster and message panes.
4. Send VA-wide broadcast messages.
5. See dispatcher presence in the pilot roster.

The dispatcher window requires the corresponding account scope and realtime server support.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 EFB

The optional EFB package brings the active ACARS flight into the simulator.

1. Follow flight status and progress.
2. View the enroute route map.
3. Review airport weather, route weather, and hazards.
4. Read phase-filtered SOP procedures and active prompts.
5. See SOP violations.
6. Submit weather or turbulence AIREPs with severity and remarks.
7. Follow pilot and dispatch communications.
8. Use an airline-branded EFB icon when supplied by the airline.

Airline SOPs and aircraft configuration

Airlines can deliver versioned SOPs and aircraft-specific configuration to the client.

1. Review published procedures from the briefing and EFB.
2. Highlight active or violated procedures.
3. Evaluate flight-phase and sustained-condition rules.
4. Play a configured sound or ask the pilot for confirmation.
5. Populate a PIREP field from a rule action.
6. Record the procedure and rule responsible for a violation.
7. Use aircraft-specific feature mappings and labels.
8. Refresh configuration, SOPs, sounds, aircraft files, and branding from Settings without changing profiles.

Post-flight report and scoring

The end-of-flight screen is now a full debrief. Report generation starts at on-block so it is normally ready before filing.

1. Review an overall score with landing, takeoff, approach, handling, airline rule, and integrity breakdowns.
2. See a landing fingerprint with touchdown rate, peak G, firmness, weak scoring areas, and safety flags.
3. Detect runway excursions, crashes, overstress, and airframe-limit events.
4. Score geometric approach deviation without depending on simulator ILS data.
5. Record the airport where the aircraft actually landed.
6. Review vertical and speed profiles, G-force traces, stabilized-approach scorecards, ground track, rollout, flare, runway alignment, aircraft performance, lights, weight, energy, horizon, scatter, polar, and gauge views.
7. Play and scrub an animated final-approach and landing replay.
8. Review SOP and flight-event timelines.
9. Use localized report notes and the pilot's selected display units.
10. Print the report or save it as a vector-quality PDF.

The report stays open while the PIREP is filed and can be reopened from the dashboard's recent-flight list.

Cross-airline flight history

ACARS keeps a local history across configured airline profiles. The dashboard shows recent flights, airline branding, flown routes, and saved reports without removing the airline's source PIREP data.

Profiles and browser sign-in

1. Create, edit, rename, switch, and delete airline profiles from Settings.
2. Optionally delete a profile's local data with the profile.
3. Validate credentials before switching to a profile.
4. Reauthorize the active profile without recreating it.
5. Upgrade an API-key profile to browser sign-in when the airline supports it.
6. Use OAuth 2.0 authorization code with PKCE for browser sign-in.
7. Continue using an API key with compatible servers.
8. See an explicit warning before connecting to an HTTP-only server.
9. Follow the system language or select an interface language in Settings.

Notifications

1. Receive native operating-system notifications.
2. See stacked in-app notifications with severity colors and individual close controls.
3. Pause a notification's timeout by hovering over it.
4. Choose and preview notification sounds.
5. Control sounds and in-app alert popovers separately.

Updates and diagnostics

The updater now shows the target version and its release notes before installation. Supported release channels include stable, beta, nightly, alpha, and test. Update checks can use the release API and retry when the primary source is unavailable.

Diagnostics now include a user-selectable log level and a support-report form. After submission, the app shows a short report ID that can be copied and sent to support.

The X-Plane plugin writes timestamped crash reports to its AcarsConnect/crashes directory on macOS and Linux.

Reliability changes

1. PIREP changes and position exports are persisted locally before delivery.
2. Temporary network failures leave exports queued for retry.
3. Exported rows are acknowledged only after the server accepts them.
4. Position-report frequency changes with the flight phase.
5. Position exports stop while the aircraft is parked.
6. Startup is ordered around profile activation and presents blocking failures instead of leaving the application hanging.
7. Optional remote configuration failures fall back to safe defaults.
8. Flight-search, sign-in, update, and simulator-connection failures surface specific errors in the interface.
9. Simulator connection attempts can be stopped and redirected.
10. Signed licence responses are cached for offline operation after successful activation.
11. X-Plane airport lookup accepts ICAO, apt.dat, IATA, FAA LID, and local identifiers.

Smaller changes

1. Pressing Enter submits pilot-facing forms on key release.
2. Airline logos appear on flight and recent-flight rows with an airline-code fallback.
3. The dashboard shows whether the next flight has a SimBrief plan.
4. The dock supports pointer-based reordering and saves the new order.
5. The new ACARS mark is used by the desktop application and packaged EFB.
6. Every packaged release includes its matching changelog.

Availability notes

Preview and diagnostic tools

Recorded-flight replay controls support pause, 1x, 10x, and 60x playback, percentage seeking, and jumps to recorded flight phases. The normal-user entry point remains developer-gated in 3.0.

A separate telemetry monitor provides engine, approach, flare, terrain, wind, envelope, threshold, CSV, SimVar, and LVar tools. It is intended for diagnostics and aircraft configuration work rather than normal flight operation.