Glossary

Easily confused concepts in phpvms — clarified.

For the high-level overview, see Key Concepts. For per-entity field reference, see the Deeper Dive.

Aircraft vs Subfleet

A subfleet is a category; an aircraft is a specific tail number. You can't assign an aircraft directly to a flight or rank — you assign the subfleet, and any aircraft inside it inherits that relationship.

Flight vs PIREP

A flight is the schedule template (BAW178 LHR → JFK). A PIREP is the one-time report of a pilot actually flying it. One flight has many PIREPs over time. PIREPs can also exist without a flight (free-form / non-scheduled).

Hub vs Home Airport vs Current Airport

• Hub — an airport flagged hub=true, selectable at registration
• Home Airport — the user's permanent base (their chosen hub)
• Current Airport — where the user's last PIREP arrived; resets on each accepted PIREP

Fare on Subfleet vs Fare on Flight

The fare exists once globally. The subfleet pivot (subfleet_fare) sets defaults for any flight using that subfleet. The flight pivot (flight_fare) overrides those defaults for one specific flight. Per-flight overrides win.

Rank vs Role

Rank is a pilot progression tier (hours-based, gates subfleets). Role is a staff permission (admin / mod / pilot — gates the admin panel). They're independent.

Type Rating

A separate qualification system. A subfleet can require one or more type ratings; a user holds zero or more. If the subfleet requires ratings the user doesn't have, they can't fly it — even if their rank would otherwise allow it.