VRS X 0.8.2 is out — released on 16 September 2026.
What started as a weather update grew into a wider set of improvements to the radar, route reporting and flight history. Thanks to everyone who tested the development builds and kept the ideas coming. We did eventually stop adding things long enough to make a release.
This release brings the work covered in both development previews together with the final improvements to aircraft outlines, operator logos and history playback maps.
Weather layers on the live radar
The new Weather panel brings observations, satellite imagery and forecasts onto the aircraft map. These are different kinds of data: a forecast is not a live observation, and availability depends on the provider and geographic coverage.
Available sources include:
- IMGW-PIB: station temperature observations for Poland. These are readings at individual stations, not a precipitation radar or an interpolated temperature map.
- EUMETSAT: Meteosat infrared, natural-colour and air-mass imagery covering Europe and Africa.
- DWD: RADOLAN precipitation radar for Germany and surrounding areas, plus ICON-EU hourly precipitation forecasts for Europe.
- DWD / EUMETSAT: a global infrared satellite composite.
- NOAA nowCOAST: a base-reflectivity radar mosaic for the contiguous United States.
- ECCC GeoMet: precipitation radar coverage for North America.
- NOAA GFS through UCAR THREDDS: global forecasts for precipitation rate, cloud cover, 2 m temperature and wind at the surface and selected pressure levels.
Choose the layers you need
Weather starts switched off. Select up to three layers using the checkboxes in the provider groups; your choices are remembered in that browser. Collapsing a group or closing the panel does not turn its selected layers off.
Layers refresh every five minutes. The panel shows valid times in UTC and indicates loading, delayed or unavailable data. For observations, VRS X requests the latest available data; for forecasts, it selects a valid time close to the present. This is a current-conditions view, rather than a weather timeline or animation player.
Weather imagery stays below aircraft, trails and airport markers. The weather feature does not require a personal weather API key, a separate Docker service or a local GRIB decoder.
More resilient weather loading
DWD radar tiles that fail around coverage edges are retried at a higher rendering resolution for the same area and time. An unavailable layer is reported rather than silently replaced with an empty tile.
Weather requests now have a separate rate-limit budget from ordinary radar API traffic and page assets. Tile loading and caching are bounded, and failures can recover on a subsequent refresh. Private radar access rules continue to apply.
Aircraft colours by altitude
The Labels panel now lets you choose between Standard aircraft colours and By altitude.
Altitude colouring uses the same palette as altitude-coloured trails, making it easier to relate an aircraft to its track. Ground traffic and aircraft without a usable altitude use the lowest colour in the scale. The calculation uses feet internally, regardless of your display units.
This setting changes marker fill colours; selection and emergency indicators remain available. It is a local browser preference, and changing it redraws the markers immediately.
Adjust aircraft marker size
A new local marker-scale control lets you make aircraft silhouettes smaller or larger:
- Range: 0.75× to 2.00×.
- Step: 0.05×.
- Default: 1.00×.
The multiplier preserves the relative sizes of aircraft classes. Like altitude colouring, it is stored in your browser and does not require a server restart or an administrator to change the shared radar configuration.
Better manual route reporting
Airport suggestions are now available in the FROM, VIA and TO fields of manual route reports, including reports submitted through the public reporting form.
Type a three- or four-letter IATA or ICAO code to request up to five suggestions. You can select an airport with the mouse or keyboard; selecting a result writes its ICAO code into the field. For example, a search for LHR can help you select EGLL.
Suggestions are a convenience, not a requirement. Manual IATA input remains supported, and a failed or empty suggestion request does not prevent submitting the report. Central remains responsible for validation and resolution.
Requests are debounced and cached, with stale requests cancelled and rate-limit responses handled. Central credentials remain on the server. This feature does not require a local OurAirports import, and it does not change automatic route inference.
More compatible SVG imports
SVG aircraft markers were introduced in 0.8.1. This release improves their import compatibility and refresh behaviour:
- Accept supported SVG version declarations and remove editor or provenance metadata that does not contribute to the silhouette.
- Convert supported simple inline styles into presentation attributes.
- Provide clearer rejection reasons for unsupported SVG content.
- Refresh the marker catalogue when its content changes and retry initial loading failures.
Active content, external references, DTDs and unsupported styling remain rejected. Existing administrator overrides are retained.
Radar appearance and mobile fixes
The final development changes also improve everyday readability:
- Better outline contrast for dark aircraft silhouettes on dark basemaps.
- Restored operator logos above aircraft rendered by the canvas marker layer.
- Generic operator logos for these map overlays, rather than callsign-specific logo variants.
- Fixes for overlapping mobile radar controls and a duplicate menu frame.
Choose a basemap in flight history
Flight history playback now has a basemap selector using the radar's map catalogue, including street, satellite and topographic options.
The selected map is remembered locally for history playback. A theme-based default remains available, so you can either follow the interface theme or choose a map that makes a particular flight easier to inspect.
Availability
0.8.2 is a released version within the VRS X Closed Beta. This release does not change the beta access requirements.
Earlier development previews
Both previews remain available as a record of development. Their forward-looking statements describe the state at the time; this post is the final release summary for 0.8.2.