Recapping Free Flights, Tours, Schedules, Charters and Scoring

The moderation team at VirtualFlight.Online regularly find themselves answering questions from members about the various rules surrounding free flights, tours, scheduled flights, and charters within the virtual airline - wondering how the pilot rank affects their options - both in terms of flights they might complete, and aircraft they might use.

Let’s break it down.

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How the Rank Structure Impacts You

Each tour and aircraft in the fleet is assigned a minimum rank. Therefore as you log more hours, you increase in rank and more tours and aircraft become available to you for tours, scheduled flights, and charters.

Free Flights

If you begin a flight within the ACARS client, there are no restrictions. You can fly whatever you want, wherever you want, and log the hours.

Tours

The virtual airline has a number of tours - where pilots can fly one leg after another to complete a tour and earn a badge for their user profile as a result.

• Each tour has a minimum rank - which is displayed in the details of the tour. The index page of all tours groups them into broad class groups as well.

• Most tour legs do not specify aircraft type - meaning you can use an aircraft of your own choosing.

• If you dispatch a leg of a tour via Simbrief, any rank restrictions for that aircraft will come into play.

• If a leg of a tour specifies an aircraft type, you can only fly that leg if you have the appropriate rank for that aircraft type (only the flight school event legs specify aircraft type).

Scheduled Flights

• If you wish to dispatch a scheduled flight, you can only use aircraft you are qualified for (only Class D aircraft and above have scheduled flights).

• If you wish to dispatch via Simbrief, you can also only do so using aircraft types you are qualified for.

Chartered Flights

• If you wish to dispatch a Chartered Flight (via the dispatch page), you can only do so using aircraft types you are qualified for.

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Ranks

The various ranks, and their associated hours are listed here for convenience - you can also find this table within the airline itself.

Student Pilot - 0 hours logged

• Only the pilot school event is open to you

• You may also fly "free flights" (filling in ACARS directly)

Private Pilot - 1 hour logged

• All of the GA aircraft in the fleet become available to you.

Class D - 10 hours logged

• All of the Turbo-props and many historic aircraft become available to you 

• 10 hours - Class D First Officer

• 20 hours - Class D Captain

Class C - 30 hours logged

• Many of the business jets and longer-range turbo props become available to you

• 30 hours - Class C First Officer

• 40 hours - Class C Captain

Class B - 50 hours logged

• The airliners become available to you

• 50 hours - Class B First Officer

• 60 hours - Class B Captain

Class A - 70 hours logged

• The longer range airliners and transport aircraft become available to you.

• 70 hours

• 80 hours

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The Fleet

Scheduled and chartered flights require that you specify the aircraft type you will be using for the flight. The aircraft type ICAO code is used as identification - the aircraft available to each rank are listed below.

Note that scheduled routes are typically tailored for different aircraft based on range and flight time. You don’t want to see the software I wrote to come up with the schedules :)

Student Pilot

• C152  Cessna 152

• C172  Cessna 172

• DR40  Robin DR400-100

Private Pilot

• A5    Icon A5

• B58T  Beechcraft Baron G58

• BDOG  Scottish Aviation Bulldog

• BE17  Beechcraft Model 17

• BE18  Beechcraft Model 18

• BE36  Beechcraft Bonanza G36

• C170  Cessna 170B

• C182  Cessna 182 Skylane

• C195  Cessna 195 Businessliner

• C310  Cessna 310

• C337  Cessna 337 Skymaster

• C414  Cessna 414A Chancellor

• DA40  Diamond DA40-TDI

• DA40  Diamond DA40NG

• DA62  Diamond DA62

• DG1T  DG Flugzeugbau DG-1001e neo

• DV20  Diamond DV20

• FDCT  Flight Design CTLS

• G21   Grumman G-21 Goose

• G2CA  Guimbal Cabri G2

• H4    Hughes H-4 Hercules

• HUSK  Aviat Husky

• JN4   Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck"

• L1P   PZL-104 Wilga

• LG8   DG Flugzeugbau LG8-18

• M20R  Mooney M20R Ovation

• NYP   Ryan NYP "Spirit of St Louis"

• P28A  Piper PA28 Warrior II

• P28R  Piper PA28 Arrow

• P28S  Piper PA28 Turbo Arrow

• PA34  Piper PA-34 Seneca

• PA44  Piper PA-44 Seminole

• PIVI  Pipistrel Virus SW 121

• SR22  Cirrus SR22

• SF50  Cirrus Vision Jet

• TMOT  de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth

• VL3   JMB VL-3

• WACF  WACO WMYF-5

Class D

• B247  Boeing 247

• BN2A  Britten Norman BN-2 Islander

• BN2B  Britten Norman BN-2 Trislander

• C208  Cessna 208B Grand Caravan

• DC3   Douglas DC-3 "Dakota"

• DC6   Douglas DC-6A

• DC6   Douglas DC-6B

• DHC2  de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver

• DHC4  de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou

• DHC6  de Havilland Canada Twin Otter

• G21   Grumman Goose

• KODI  Daher Kodiak 100

• L10   Lockheed Electra 10A

• PC6P  Pilatus PC-6

Class C

• B350  Beechcraft King Air 350i

• B462  BAe 146 200

• B407  Bell 407

• C510  Cessna Citation Mustang

• C700  Cessna Citation Longitude

• CJ4   Cessna Citation CJ4

• CRJ7  Bombardier CRJ 700

• EC35  Airbus H135

• EC45  Airbus H145

• HDJT  HA-420 Honda Jet

• MD82  McDonnel Douglas MD-82

• PC12  Pilatus PC-12

• TBM9  Daher TBM 930

Class B

• A310  Airbus A310

• A320  Airbus A320

• B736  Boeing 737-600

• B737  Boeing 737-700

• B738  Boeing 737-800

• B739  Boeing 737-900

Class A

• B748  Boeing 747-800

• B787  Boeing 787

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How your flight is scored

The Virtual Airline flight tracking system scores your flight on a number of parameters when you finish a flight. Those parameters are shown on the flight report as a series of ticks, and culminate in an overall score.

The score is primarily calculated by a number of tests - which (if failed) reduce your score by a ratio.

Scoring Parameters

The tests are as follows:

1. Landing rate was over 200 ft/min - score reduced by 5%

2. Landing rate was over 250 ft/min - score reduced by 7%

3. Landing rate was over 500 ft/min - score reduced by 10%

4. Crash detected - score is set to 0

5. Landing lights on above 10,000ft - score reduced by 1%

6. Landing lights off below 10,000ft - score reduced by 1%

7. Aircraft overspeed detected - score reduced by 10%

8. Slew detected - score reduced by 20%

9. Taxi overspeed detected - score reduced by 5%

10. Overspeed above 250kt below 10,000ft - score reduced by 5%

11. Beacon Off, Engine On - no affect on score

12. Stall detected - score reduced by 25%

Beyond these procedural tests, there are other factors, which will be covered soon.

Notes

• The landing rate failures are cumulative - i.e. if you land at 280ft/min, your score will be downgraded by 12% (5% + 7%)

• Due to incompatibility with some of the 3rd party aircraft in Flight Simulator, we have lowered the penalty for the Beacon Off / Engine On test - because false positives were being reported.

• We have lowered penalty for the landing light test because it is unfair on GA aircraft (ACARS cannot differentiate between GA and commercial aircraft).

• Remember this is just for fun!

And finally...

When recording flights either with ACARS, or manual PIREPs, you will be expected to record fair, accurate, and representative information. This is based on trust.

• You will not manipulate time (through acceleration or deceleration) within the simulator

• You will not use SLEW, teleportation, or any other method of artificially moving your aircraft

• If filing a manual PIREP your report will be as accurate, fair, and as representative as reasonably possible

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Still have questions?

If you have further questions about the virtual airline, don’t hesitate to search or start a topic within the #support channel in our Discord server.

• https://codex.virtualflight.online/community/discord

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• https://patreon.com/virtualflightonline