# Flight tracking ### Getting into a tracked flight CAVacars 2 watches for your aircraft to appear in the simulator world. When it does: - If you were on the **Home** screen, you'll get a 10-second banner offering to jump straight to **Flight Tracking**. - If a dispatched flight departs from wherever you've spawned, tracking **arms itself automatically** with a 60-second countdown before it starts, giving you time to finish your before-start flow first. You can click **Start now** to skip the wait, or **Cancel** to not track this flight. - If more than one of your dispatched flights departs from the same airport, you'll be asked which one to track instead of it guessing. ### While tracking Once active, CAVacars 2 sends position updates to the server automatically and shows your progress (distance and time remaining) right on the tracking screen. The bar under the map shows the flight you're tracking and how many updates have been sent, with **File PIREP**, **Stop** and **Cancel flight** buttons. ### The buttons above the map
ButtonWhat it does
**Log**Shows the Flight Log panel: events recorded during the flight, your own comments, and the Auto-file switch. See [Filing your PIREP](https://kb.canadaairvirtual.ca/books/cavacars-2-pilot-guide/page/filing-your-pirep).
**Profile**Shows the vertical profile panel: a chart of your altitude and airspeed over the flight so far.
**Follow**Keeps the map centred on your aircraft. Dragging the map away turns it off; it turns itself back on when your aircraft is near the middle again.
**Traffic**, **Layers**, **Radar**Other aircraft, airspace and navigation data, and weather radar. See [Map layers](https://kb.canadaairvirtual.ca/books/cavacars-2-pilot-guide/page/map-layers).
**Pause at TOD**Pauses the sim before your top of descent (see below). Only shown while a flight is being tracked.
**Recover**Puts your aircraft back where it was after a sim crash (see below). Only shown when it's needed.
**Pause** / **Resume**Pauses or resumes the simulator.
While the sim is paused, the map is dimmed with a large **SIM PAUSED** label and a button to resume. ### Pause at top of descent Turn this on and CAVacars 2 pauses the simulator a little before your computed top-of-descent point, based on a rough 3° descent profile. It's handy if you tend to get distracted and fly through your TOD. When it pauses, you'll hear a two-tone cabin chime, and the bar under the map says **Paused at top of descent** with a **Resume** button. Click **Pause at TOD** to set how early it pauses: - **Lead by distance:** pause a set number of nautical miles before TOD. - **Lead by time:** pause a set number of minutes before TOD, based on your current ground speed. Adjust the value if it's pausing too early or too late for your taste. ### Stopping or cancelling a flight - **Stop** stops tracking but keeps the flight open, so you can resume it for the next 12 hours. - **Cancel flight** throws the tracked flight and its log away, and it can't be resumed. You're then asked whether to keep the dispatch to fly later or delete it. You can also cancel a tracked flight from the **Dispatched** tab, which helps if the app or sim crashed and you don't want to resume. ### Interruptions and resuming If you close the app, crash, or otherwise get interrupted mid-flight, CAVacars 2 keeps your tracked flight open on the server for **12 hours**. Next time you launch the app and get back in the world, you'll be offered **Resume** (pick up where you left off, log and all) or **Discard**. If tracking is active when you try to close the app, you'll get a warning first. **Quit Anyway** ends the app immediately (still resumable within the 12-hour window above) rather than properly ending the flight.

If you resume more than half a mile from where tracking last saw you, the flight log notes how far away you were. That PIREP then goes to staff for review instead of being approved automatically. This can also happen when CAVacars 2 restarts mid-flight to install an update, which is why Windows updates wait for you to click Apply.

### Recovering after a sim crash If your simulator crashes mid-flight and you restart it somewhere else, a **Recover** button appears above the map once your aircraft is more than 10 nm from its last tracked position. Click it and confirm, and CAVacars 2 moves your aircraft back to that position, altitude and heading. - You'll need to restore fuel, gear, flaps and trim yourself. - Recover works with Microsoft Flight Simulator only. - The recovery is noted in your flight log.