announcement Introducing Volanta: Your personal flight tracker

[Orbx]

Your personal flight tracker, powered by Orbx

 

The Orbx software development team is proud to announce Volanta.

 

 

Volanta is an easy to use smart flight tracker that integrates all your flight data across all major sims. Volanta gives you one more reason to fly.

 

 

Take flight with our easy-to-use interface, which takes all the paperwork out of setting up a flight in your simulator - leaving you more time to enjoy your flight. For those of us who like to complete detailed planning, we support that too.

 

 

The core features in Volanta will always be free, with added premium features at a later date.

 

 

You are invited to sign up for the invite-only beta.

 

 

We hope to see you in our flying community soon!

 

 

Key Features

 

• Automatically track your flights in all major simulators, on all operating systems
• Fun and fresh challenges to complete
• Regular giveaways from Orbx and selected partners for active pilots
• Performance focused. Super fast application on every page
• Detailed GPU rendered map with advanced filtering options tailored to aviation
• Unlimited flight storage and retrieval
• Detailed statistics for aircraft, airports and routes
• Generate a flight plan with SimBrief, or import one you’ve already made
• Keep up with your friends flying activity and view detailed statistics
• Security focused. Adjust who can search for you, see your flight history, or see you on the map. TOTP multi-factor authentication supported.
• Access your flights from anywhere in the world via the web and mobile
• Connect with Navigraph to see up-to-date navdata on the map
• And more… keep reading to see detailed information

Volanta: In Depth

Map

The core of any flight tracking service should, rightfully, be the map. In fact, our whole user experience is built using the map as a base. Almost all pages include a beautiful, full-screen map.

We have invested a lot of time into finding the best solution for displaying thousands of concurrent flights on our map, while still maintaining a fluid and smooth user experience. Using GPU rendering technology, we can show every airport, every waypoint, every airway, and every flight all at once, smoothly.

 

At higher zoom levels, more details are progressively added to the data we show, and the underlying map itself. This keeps the map less cluttered and easier to digest.

 

 

When flying online, or with friends, it’s important to know where they are. We aggregate live data for VATSIM, IVAO, PilotEdge, FSCloud and of course, Volanta. This is displayed in one integrated map. This aggregated flight data also allows you to import network flights that you did not fly on Volanta.

 

 

Further, when a user is flying on both Volanta and an online network (for example, VATSIM), we automatically hide their network flight so that you only see the more frequently updated Volanta data. This results in a cleaner map, without unnecessary duplicates.

 

 

As in real life, not all aircraft look the same. With Volanta, you can see various details about an aircraft at a glance, just by its icon and colour. We have icons for over 40 aircraft types, with more being added soon. The colour of an aircraft’s icon changes based on the network, and whether you’re friends with them.

 

 

With so many possible map layers, including for online networks and navdata, it’s important that they’re easy to toggle on and off. This is easy in Volanta! Simply open the slide-out Map Settings on the right, then you can instantly turn layers on and off, with the results instantly reflected on the map.

 

 

 

All of the information you’ll need is at your fingertips. When clicking on an aircraft on the map, we show graphs of the aircraft’s height and the ground, as well as rendering their full route on the map. We even render SIDs and STARs if they’re provided. This allows you to see if an aircraft is deviating from its planned route, and get a beautiful representation of the route on the map.

 

 

 

We also display navigation data on the map. We’ve partnered with Navigraph to supply data for us. If you have a Navigraph subscription, we’ll show you data from the latest AIRAC cycle. If not, you’ll be shown data that is slightly out of date.

 

 

 

Using OpenStreetMap data, when zooming into an airport, you’ll see runways, taxiways (including their identifiers), and gates all drawn in their correct locations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flying requires thinking in three dimensions. Because of this, we include the aircraft’s altitude in position reports, and we draw it on the map. You can explore all of your past flights in 3D detail - see how well you flew the challenging approaches into airports like Innsbruck, Tivat or Calvi, then share it with your friends!

 

 

 

Intelligent Tracking

 

Flight tracking is at Volanta’s core, so we’ve put a lot of thought into efficiently tracking flights, so you can focus on what’s important. We call this “get in and fly.” The premise is simple: you shouldn’t have to complete a long process just to set up your flight tracking software.

 

Here’s how it works. Make sure Volanta is running (can either be before or after starting your sim). Our tracking automatically starts - no more taking off then realising that you forgot to start tracking your flight! You can then just fly from your origin to your destination.

 

 

Volanta will try to infer as much information about your flight as possible. For example, Volanta will try to autofill:

 

• Origin and Destination based on the position of your aircraft.
• Your Aircraft including registration and type, is automatically selected based on the aircraft you’re flying in the simulator.

If you’re flying on a multiplayer network, we auto-fill as much information as we can. This reduces your workload and makes Volanta the smartest flight tracking app available.

 

That said, if we do guess information incorrectly, or if you’d like to enter it yourself, you can override any information about your flight that Volanta has inferred.

 

 

Your flight data gets sent to our servers every 10 seconds. This results in beautiful 3D flight paths on our map. However, we’ve implemented some smarts in this area too. As part of our Intelligent Tracking system, we have made Variable Rate Position Reports.

 

 

When you are cruising we will reduce the rate of position reports if your aircraft remains almost exactly straight and level. The instant you start a turn, or change altitude, the position reports will go back to the highest frequency. This feature saves resources on your PC, and our servers - allowing us to keep Volanta fast and free for everyone without compromising on the quality of the data.

 

 

We are careful to maintain the quality of the data we log for you. If you are slewing, or using replay mode, we will not send position reports to our servers. This keeps the data for your flight looking clean and beautiful.

 

 

Sometimes, the real world can get in the way of your simulator time. If you need to pause, or use time acceleration, we handle that too. For every flight, we calculate both the real-world time, and the effective in-sim time. This gives you the ultimate flexibility to fly how you want, without giving any users an unfair advantage.

 

 

After you’ve finished your flight and shut down your engines, Volanta will automatically end your flight after one minute. Then, when you’re ready, you can take off and fly to your next destination and have it all automatically logged by Volanta.

 

 

This intelligent tracking technology allows you to leave Volanta minimised for a whole series of flights, then view it at the end of the day to see the beautiful visualisations we’ve created for you.

 

 

We hope you enjoy tracking your flights with ease!

 

 

Flights

 

 

 

Once you’ve tracked your flight, you can view it from anywhere, at any time - we won’t make you pay just to access your past flight data.

 

 

 

Each airport pair is drawn on the map, along with the frequency. The more you fly a route, the more vibrant the line will be. We also show your full virtual logbook in an easy timeline.

 

 

Clicking on a past flight will reveal comprehensive data that we’ve stored for you.

 

 

You can see the full 3D path of your flight, as well as useful metrics such as block time, flight time and fuel burned.

 

 

Furthermore, you can see exactly where you touched down on the runway, as well as the landing rate, ground speed, wind direction and wind speed.

 

 

Aircraft

 

 

 

Volanta keeps track of your aircraft, anywhere in the world.

 

 

 

Each unique aircraft has its own location, flight history, and accumulates flight hours (along with many other statistics).

 

 

This allows you to track your favourite aircraft, and see which aircraft you need to pull out of the hangar more!

 

 

Aircraft are automatically created for you when you start a flight - no manual work is required. If you already have an aircraft in your account, Volanta will automatically find it and assign it to your flight. Keeping your data accurate.

 

 

This is just the start, we have many more features planned in this area.

 

 

Planning

 

One of the most important aspects of flying happens before you enter the aircraft. A detailed flight plan provides you with all the information you need to arrive safely at your destination. With Volanta, we can do the planning for you, or import a plan you already have.

 

 

 

We’ve partnered with SimBrief, flight simulation’s best free flight planner, to make planning your flight even easier than before.

 

 

You can plan your flight completely in Volanta, or plan it on SimBrief’s website - importing the details into your Volanta flight with a single click.

 

 

Volanta’s intelligent tracking technology helps save you time here too. We already know your aircraft’s type, so you don’t need to enter it again just to plan your flight.

 

 

If you’re flying on an online network like VATSIM, PilotEdge or IVAO, and you’ve filed a flight plan, you can import all of the details with one click. This is one of the easiest ways to get started with your flight.

 

 

We’ve made it easy so you can focus on flying.

 

 

If you use another planning tool like PFPX, you can import your flight plans using a saved route file or by pasting the route. You can do this at any time during your flight - you don’t need to do this before you start flying.

 

 

That said, planning your flight is optional. If you don’t want to use a flight plan, you don’t have to. You don’t even need to know where your destination is, that’s fine. You shouldn’t have to change the way you fly just to use a flight tracking tool.

 

 

Challenges

 

As many flight simmers know, deciding where to fly can sometimes be challenging. In Volanta, we’ve built a robust and powerful challenge system to help.

 

Challenges in Volanta can come in many shapes and sizes. Some challenges may be as simple as flying from A to B. Others may involve flying under a bridge, flying a route accurately, or a time trial. These truly test your abilities as a pilot and expand your horizons to new and exciting places.

 

 

Completing challenges gives rewards, including achievements, experience and prizes.

 

 

Some challenges are hand-crafted by our team, and others are automatically generated by our system. Exciting new challenges await every day.

 

 

This is just the beginning for challenges. The challenge system will be one of our primary focus areas going forward, with new minigames in the works. We’re very excited to hear your ideas.

 

 

Friends & Profiles

 

One of the most rewarding aspects of flight simulation is flying with others. Volanta makes this fast and easy with our built-in friend system.

 

 

Clicking on a friend in your friends list gives you easy access to a plethora of statistics on their profile. See their total number of hours, number of flights, distance flown, and their detailed flight history all from one place.

 

 

 

 

With rich status, you can see where and what your friends are flying at a glance. If you’re a Discord user, we also forward your rich status there.

 

 

 

Volanta profiles are the perfect way to share (or show off!) your flying to others. Although, the friend and profile system is optional - if you prefer to fly solo, you can. Volanta has robust privacy settings. You can control who sees your data.

 

 

Simulator and OS Support

 

Our goal is to enable any flight simmer, no matter their operating system or simulator, the ability to use Volanta.

 

Our desktop app works on Windows, macOS and Linux.

 

 

 

 

You can also use Volanta on the web, or on your phone to track your flight from anywhere in the world. The web and mobile versions have all the features you love from the desktop.

 

 

For simulators, we currently support FSX (including Steam Edition), all versions of Prepar3D, X-Plane 11, and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

 

 

Support for other simulators is coming soon!

 

 

Data Imports and Exports

 

If you already use existing flight tracking software, all of your data can be safely imported into Volanta. We currently support importing data from projectFLY and SimToolkitPro. We plan to add more soon - let us know where you want to import your data from.

 

With Volanta, your data is truly yours. Through our data manager, you can export your data with only a few clicks. The data will be exported into easy to use .json files that you can import into other tools.

 

 

This system is completely automated and usually finishes within an hour. You can export data on your schedule - no need to contact support.

 

 

Roadmap

 

This is just the beginning. We want to see Volanta grow into a tool everyone in our community uses.

• Integrations: we plan to integrate with many more simulators and services. DCS World, Infinite Flight and FlightGear are just some of the things on our list.
• Notifications: get notifications to your mobile device when you’re reaching top of descent. Get notified when your friends go online and start flying.
• Schedules: imitate real-world flights with up-to-date real-world schedules.
• Streaming tools: including a comprehensive overlay, a Twitch bot and a Twitch extension (plus more).
• More challenges: minigames, interactive challenges, multiplayer challenges.
• Translations into many other languages (let us know if you want to help!)
• Other community driven features

Keep in mind that the roadmap above isn’t a commitment. It will be heavily shaped by what you, our community, want to see.

 

Invite-only Beta

 

We hope you are as excited as we are about the new opportunities and enhanced smart flight experience Volanta has to offer.

 

You are invited to join Volanta’s invite-only beta and connect with the global community before it is officially launched.

 

 

Register for the invite-only beta.

 

 

Expand your horizons with Volanta today!

 

 

Psst, we also have some social media accounts. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

 

[TimmR1991]

Wow! This looks amazing

With STKP we already have a really great freeware tool providing a lot of features but I think with Orbx we have the perfect company in the background.

I would love to see a App for Android/iOS however it will work from the browser.

 

This looks exciting to me!

[Patrick1246]

Just registered for the Beta. It looks very nice, can't wait to try it out. 

[Zayad Abushamka]

AS ALWAYS WE LOVE Orbx

THANK YOU

[cholland100]

Sounds interesting but will it be able to integrate into a Virtual Airline systems? Could it track a VA flight and log those details into my career for example? Because other than comparing my past flight info with others in a lovely interface, I can’t see the point in it. If it can integrate with VA careers that would be really helpful.

Edited October 23, 2020 by cholland100

[Socata]

mee too

 

[maxpax444]

Looks very interesting guys, good looking UI too!

[eduvallim]

Looks amazing, cant wait to try it out

[Anthony96]

Registered for beta perfect news for the end of the week for me 

[micstatic]

will you guys have the ability to allow us to import projectfly data?  I have downloaded the data and have it on my machine now.  thanks. 

[Captain Lars]

How cool is that?

[maunakea]

Looks very nice! I love how sleek and modern it looks. But please do not make it subscription based. I would love to see Volanta include it's very own powerful flight planning built-in without having to rely on 3rd party like PFPX or SimBrief. I am looking for an all-in-one app that has a powerful and intuitive and visual flight planner like the one in MSFS, an EFB (like Aivlasoft EFB). I don't see a need to have the latest charts and nav data every month. I usually renew yearly. Which is why I hope Volanta won't rely heavily on us to have subscription services like navigraph to fully enjoy this app. I love the 3d views and how you can clearly visualize your entire flight plan! That is a huge feature for me personally, because I love all sorts of data, especially when it's represented so cleanly and well laid out. I hope it will also include SID/STAR and the approach in the 3D flight plan view as well.

 

 

[lawlegge]

6 hours ago, cholland100 said:

integrate into a Virtual Airline systems?

+1 here.

 

That would pretty well wrap it all up in one place...

[andInTheGame]

Very interested in this! Submitted for the beta straight away.

[flynryan692]

Who is the point of contact for the data import? I've been running a flight tracking website since 2011 and would like to offer my members the ability to import their data to Volanta. 

Edited October 24, 2020 by flynryan692

[cro]

I love it, immediately registered 

After the MSFS beta, the Volenta beta

Edited October 24, 2020 by cro

[B777LR]

Now this is neat stuff, will definitely be getting this. Been looking for something like this for ages. 

[Flyinhi777]

Just signed up for beta, looks great and looking forward to it.  Will it display how far away (nm) we are from our destination airport since we don't have pause on descent feature in msfs20 yet?

[azgoodaz]

I forgot to put this in the Google doc, but it would be nice to later on integrate a system like what FS Economy or OnAir Company has. Make your own version of this system, currently both are horrible, one you need to get through hoops in order to sign up (and it's about 10 years old, 0 development was thought about this UI) and another is subscription based which is horrible, no free version.

 

It would be nice to have your own company and invite friends to the company or freelance if you choose to do so. A system where you can be in control of your own Virtual Airliner company or one you can be apart of. If you can do this, everyone will flock to Volanta.

Edited October 24, 2020 by azgoodaz

[Lukather]

1 hour ago, azgoodaz said:

I forgot to put this in the Google doc, but it would be nice to later on integrate a system like what FS Economy or OnAir Company has. Make your own version of this system, currently both are horrible, one you need to get through hoops in order to sign up (and it's about 10 years old, 0 development was thought about this UI) and another is subscription based which is horrible, no free version.

 

It would be nice to have your own company and invite friends to the company or freelance if you choose to do so. A system where you can be in control of your own Virtual Airliner company or one you can be apart of. If you can do this, everyone will flock to Volanta.

 

I agree with you, I'm on OnAir Company but both of them feel "ancient" and bad supported or developed on UI side (do something simple is always a mess).

[hypercide]

Will this be free? I am wondering because if data is going to your servers, that would mean that we would be paying you to supply you with all the data you need to figure out pretty everything you need to know in order to direct the development of your products. I would be interested in something that is standalone and unconnected to anyone's servers, but I would steer very clear of anything where I would be paying Orbx to perform Orbx's market research.

[Aussie123]

I'm interested to find out if this package can be run on a networked PC and not plastered over the outside views?

 

i.e. Confine flight planning, operations and tracking to one of your separate PCs?

 

Aussie

[maxpax444]

1 hour ago, hypercide said:

Will this be free? I am wondering because if data is going to your servers, that would mean that we would be paying you to supply you with all the data you need to figure out pretty everything you need to know in order to direct the development of your products. I would be interested in something that is standalone and unconnected to anyone's servers, but I would steer very clear of anything where I would be paying Orbx to perform Orbx's market research.

Interesting point! It says the core features will be free but there will be some premium things in the future. Will be interesting to see how this pans out...

Edited October 24, 2020 by maxpax444

[kvuo75]

sounds really good..  enjoyed projectfly.. now using stkp but really only need the tracking/logging. this is probably going to be my solution.

 

 

kinda like to see that fleet page show more aircraft at once (fill whole screen) but lookin good so far!

 

 

 

[Dr_Watson]

Looks great, when I tried MSFS, I was really lost without my Airspaces public map for X-Plane on my second PC, this looks great! 

[Gasman5]

Looks a good replacement for FSNav

[Nidhal]

Amazing!

Edited October 25, 2020 by Nidhal

[aero-3fsx]

Finally something to replace my aging Flight Keeper which is still running altough it hasnt been updated in years

Thanks Orbx for taking action to solve a real whole in the addin market

[S3rg1o]

Defenitly The "Challenges" part, was the thing that thril my attention to Volanta. 

I'm really looking forward to check all the features this new package will bring... 

[FSBillUp]

Signed up to the Beta. I already use STKP but I am not dedicated to one developer. I will always use what best for me. 

I would love to see Taxiway Highlighting. When you are given Taxi instructions to the Active, the ability to highlight the taxiways assigned to your holding point. So if I am asked to taxi via Alpha, Juliet, Bravo to holding point Charlie, I can have the option to highlight these taxiways so I can follow them with a visual reference. 

If this was implemented I would immediately switch to using Volanta. This would be an absolute life saver if you are at an airport on Vatsim you are not familiar with. Saves you bungling around trying not to get lost lol

[wain71]

looks a very interesting addition, will keep an eye out for updates on how this is progressing...

[MrDylanFM]

Will volanta work on Chrome OS? 

[bigboibru]

Looks very nice! Just a quick question: If we have applied for the beta, roughly how long should it be until we receive a confirmation email?

[vtracy]

Can I use this in VR? All the wonderful moving map/flight tracking... apps require that I exit VR, look at either the iPad or a window, and then go back to VR. Considering the popularity boost that VR will get when MSFS works in VR, it might be worth while to make the app usable in VR.

Volker

[jotaedo]

Looks great

 

have 2 questions 

 

1) will volanta be able to retrieve data from my past flights on vatsim. I’m asking because vatsim stores my previous flight plans so the you can find origin? Destination REG/AAAAA data into e remarks sections and a lot of more info, since I fly vatsim since 2002 or so would really love to see my historical logbook imported into volanta 

 

2) is this in any way related to airpark?there is a particular feature I think it would be pretty cool to integrate which is the prefer custom scenery. I own a lot and would like to be sure that I have visited them all

[ngreenaway]

wish this could have DCS flights integrated as well, but im looking forward to this one regardless

 

[Aussie123]

Anyone received any feedback regarding registration yet? It has been a week.

Aussie

[bigboibru]

7 hours ago, Aussie123 said:

Anyone received any feedback regarding registration yet? It has been a week.

Aussie

same here, I have not gotten any feedback either

[Anthony96]

On 11/2/2020 at 9:57 PM, bigboibru said:

same here, I have not gotten any feedback either

Same to me NOTHING signed up twice

[Ben McClintock]

Hi all,

 

Your registrations have all been received - we're still working to get Volanta to you very soon. We've implemented some of the top requested features and simulators (including one mentioned a few posts above mine )