ProjectFly v4, the latest version of the popular flight simulation flight tracker, has been postponed. A lengthy Facebook post by head manager Matt Davies states a mixture of different factors led to the pausing of the update. According to Davies, the main components for the delay were due to the testing being around the holidays, trying to get v4 released before the next bill, and conflicts within the projectFly beta testing team. V3 of projectFly has been restored and users can start logging their flights again.

Matt starts off the post by apologizing for projectFly’s absence throughout the holidays, and regrets the timing of the attempted v4 update. He then goes over the rough year that projectFly has been going through, how everything “went pear shaped”. The majority of the team left in July, leaving just Davies and a partner until September, when two more developers joined them. At this point, he says they were developing somewhat random strands of v4 without an established plan. 

This all came to a head in October when finances got tight, by which point Davies says he became overwhelmed and went into a “v4 needs to be released now mode” with the goal of making projectFly self sustaining via paid tiers. When the community came through with fundraising in October through December, web infrastructure experts apparently reached out to him and collaborated to scale back costs by 50% (Davies notes this did take significantly longer than anticipated, but was an ultimately necessary move). 

So with the community’s financial backing and reduced running costs, along with his immediate v4 release mode, the team steamrolled through the months leading up to recently. By this point, projectFly v4 was getting closer to a “ready enough” state, though Davies admits that it still wasn’t ready to go. There wasn’t a plan B for the update, so v3 was pulled and he used the downtime to bring v4 to the “ready enough” status. He also acknowledges the full migration should’ve only taken around 2-3 days. 

The testing team for v4 also had its own set of problems, as testers had been unable to access working versions of the software due to down and misconfigured servers which Davies hadn’t had time to fix. A week after v3 going offline, v4 testing went online, and the version was found to have a myriad of issues. This, paired with the holiday season when testers are largely unavailable, along with apparent conflicts within the testing team, put an axe in the release. 

Davies says that he is the one at fault for the delay, and that as the captain of the plane it’s his job to fix it. He laid out a short timeline of what’s going to be happening at projectFly. First, projectFly v3 is back online, and users can start logging their flights again. Second, the team will be restructuring its testing program and implementing a plan Davies made back in the Summer. Third, projectFly v4 won’t be in the “ready enough” state, if it’s releasing it’ll be completely ready and fully polished. While v3 isn’t a self sustaining platform, the recent crowdfunding should keep projectFly’s service going until at least March. 

As for people who feel they’ve been unfairly removed from the service, Davies says they should feel free to send him a message, and that complaints will be handled on a case by case basis. Closing out, future posts from projectFly and Mettar Simulations will be by someone on the team rather than Matt, as he says he’ll be removing his personal self from both teams respectively. 

That’s the latest projectFly update summarized, Threshold will make sure to let you know of new developments as they come. To view the original Facebook post by Matt, click here. To view previous articles about projectFly, click here. 

Thanks to Recoil for the news tip over on the Threshold Discord Server.