How a flight works · Air Virtua

A flight takes four steps: booking, preparing in SimBrief, flying with the tracker and the report. This is what matters at each of them.

Booking

You are cleared for a flight when everything lines up at once:

you have been accepted into the airline that owns the flight;
your rank is enough for that class of aircraft;
your rating for the type family is active, provisional or full;
the airframe is free, airworthy and parked at the departure airport;
you hold no other booking: a pilot has one booking at a time.

The payload is fixed at booking, and it drives both your weight in the sim and the revenue. It belongs to the route and the day: cancel and book the same route again and you get the same payload, though you can swap the aircraft. A route has a finite number of passengers shared by all its flights, so a half-empty cabin means the demand on that route has run out. You cannot set the payload by hand.

Flights on a route leaving half empty? Move the departure to another hour: the day strip on the line screen shows where demand is still free. Another frequency in the same hour adds almost nothing.

A booking reserves the aircraft for you and lasts a week: if you do not fly it, it is released, the aircraft goes back to the airline and you get a message. If the tracker is already recording the flight, you confirm the cancellation by holding “Cancel booking”: recording stops, and that track can no longer be filed.

Flight matcher

The “Where to?” block on the dashboard offers an aircraft and a flight you can fly right away: the aircraft is already at the departure airport. “Another option” reshuffles, and “Take the flight” books it the same way the flight board does. VFR missions and charters on a real route have their own switches.

A charter on a real route helps when a type has no line of its own, like an An-124 or an A380 at a young airline. You pick the type and the flight is drawn from the real routes that type flies; the aircraft is positioned for free and returned after the report. It pays a share of the revenue while the airline carries all the costs, so it earns less than your own line, and you can take one per day.

Preparation

The “To SimBrief” button on the flight page opens the planner with the route, type, payload and callsign filled in. If the tracker knows which add-on you last flew this type on, the planner opens with the SimBrief variant for that add-on (Fenix, PMDG, iniBuilds and others). If the plan ends up with fewer passengers than were sold, the flight is paid by the plan: that is how many people you carry. After that it is a normal briefing: route, fuel, weather, alternate.

Which SimBrief profile to use is decided in order: your choice for the type in the profile settings (Pilot tab, SimBrief profiles card), then the profile from your last plan on this type, then the variant for the add-on the tracker saw, otherwise the base type. You can pick your own My Fleet profile from plans you have already built or paste its Internal ID. Next to the To SimBrief button you can see which profile goes into the plan and where it came from. We do not touch the weights of your own profile: only the aircraft's seats go into the plan.

Under “Flight details” on the “Booking” tab you can set a “Planned departure”, a UTC time. It goes into the SimBrief plan, and “ATC en route” counts from it while there is no plan yet. Only you can see it.

Flight information connects your plan to the airport: a runway recommendation from wind and effective NOTAMs, with ATIS and planned runways shown separately. Reasons appear beside the choice. A SID connects to the start of the route and a STAR to its end. Published approach connection fixes and known transition names are shown; an intermediate fix connects only when the STAR ends there. Circling approaches and those requiring special authorization remain listed but are not automatically recommended. Select another runway or STAR to recalculate procedures. If data is missing, the briefing explains what to check. ATC confirms assigned runways and procedures. On the runway plan, the arrow shows airflow; “from …°” gives its source relative to true north. Speed and gusts are in m/s. Calm, variable wind and missing data have no directional arrow. The plan is shown directly from above with north always at the top. Pavement texture, edges and shadows distinguish the runways. Threshold stripes, aiming points and touchdown zones are illustrated at both ends; check airport charts for actual markings and displaced thresholds. For Simferopol, the briefing can extend the route with a published procedure and show points for manual FMS entry. For Dikson, select an arrival direction to see its published segment and points. Check NOTAM availability, restrictions, fuel and time separately. At Igarka, the briefing shows low-visibility conditions. At Igarka and Bovanenkovo, check equipment and climb performance for the recommended procedure. At Chita, check AIP and ATIS for runway 11 landing restrictions, low visibility operations and the status of the grass runway. At Chita and Arkhangelsk, check aircraft equipment and performance for the recommended procedure. At Yakutsk and Naryan-Mar, the briefing checks published operating hours and warns outside the schedule. Runways can be selected manually after checking NOTAMs and ATC; check equipment for the recommended procedure. In Kaliningrad, check airspace restrictions for the recommended procedure. Bratsk shows its published hours, exceptions and radio schedule; recommendations outside those hours include an availability warning. Bratsk procedure notes include radar control, equipment, climb and temperature requirements. Neryungri and Surgut show DME and radar control requirements for specific procedures. Neryungri also shows RNP approach temperature limits. In light wind, the airport rule, current ATIS, planned runway and a published ILS approach are considered; if no preference is known, the first runway end by designation is selected. Bratsk shows radar and DME requirements for ILS X and NDB Y, and RNAV 1 and GNSS requirements for ILS Z and GLS. Mirny shows equipment, low visibility, runway use, temperature and altimeter setting conditions. Surgut shows GNSS and ATC reporting requirements; Noyabrsk shows equipment, city overflight, climb and temperature conditions. Kirov shows procedure requirements for equipment, radar, climb and temperature. Mirny includes aerodrome hours and RNP, GLS and LOC Z equipment requirements. Yakutsk shows RNAV conditions and approach coordination with ATC. Kyzyl shows equipment, radar control and procedure profile requirements. Salekhard shows published operating hours, equipment requirements and the visual manoeuvring restriction. Kaliningrad shows RNAV, GLS and RNP conditions, including ATC-assigned arrivals and Baro-VNAV temperature limits. Khabarovsk shows RNAV conditions, ATC-assigned procedures, speed limits and approach equipment requirements. Yelizovo shows RNAV, holding, missed-approach and ATC communication conditions. Irkutsk shows RNAV, restricted-area, temperature and LVP conditions. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk shows procedure requirements and marks ATC-assigned variants.

Company comms

Your airline’s management and dispatcher can write to you right in the cockpit, in the ACARS company mailbox (COMPANY MSG). It is a company link, so you do not fly it as a clearance. You can reply from the MCDU or from the flight page, under the «Comms» tab.

The callsign in FLT NBR must match the one on the flight page and in the briefing, where it has a copy button. ToLiss pulls it from the SimBrief plan by itself; in the Fenix you type it by hand. The Hoppie code goes into the add-on’s tablet, and the platform never asks for it or stores it.

The company station lives on Hoppie’s VATSIM network, so your Hoppie account (the My ACARS Account form on hoppie.nl) must have VATSIM selected, even if you fly offline. Logging on to the company callsign from the MCDU will not work: write to it in reply to a telex it sent you.

Flight, score, report

The tracker recognises your booked flight by itself and follows it from taxi to the gate, with nothing for you to do. Reports are accepted automatically: you get XP and your bonus, the airline gets revenue, the airframe gets wear and, on a bad day, defects.

The A to F score is built from checks at every stage of the flight, with the landing examined in the most detail. Limits and answers to common complaints are in the “Why your score drops” chapter.

A truly heavy landing damages the aircraft, and a severe case goes into the public incident feed that everyone can read.

You can attach up to four screenshots to an accepted report: as a file, by dragging it in or with Ctrl+V right on the debrief page. Within seven days of landing you can send the album to World News, once per flight and no more than three stories a day; a moderator reads it first.

Why your score drops

Alternates

Land somewhere other than the assigned airport and the flight still counts, with costs worked out on the leg you actually flew. Ticket revenue is cut by 35% if the decision is not justified. It is justified when you landed at the alternate from your SimBrief plan, went around, or the weather at the planned airport was below minima.

How the tracker works

Today’s flights

The flight of the day is shared by the whole platform and changes at 00:05 UTC. There are two, a CIS route and one from the World deck, both no longer than two hours, and each pays its own reward. The cabin goes out full, and the reward is double XP plus half the flight profit on top.

The daily challenge sends you to a hard airfield such as Madeira or Lukla, at a level from 1 to 4. The reward is a fixed cash bonus and an XP multiplier, and a loss on the leg is written off. Nobody checks whether your aircraft fits the runway: that is your risk.

The pilot dashboard also has a pick of airports where the TAF forecast shows difficult weather by the time you arrive. “Take the flight” there works like the challenge, except you must depart within four hours. Those who run the schedule also get “Open a flight for 4 h”: a temporary flight any pilot of the airline can take.

The reward is paid once per day, and for the challenge only on a flight that counts. A repeat flight is scored by the usual rules.
The aircraft is positioned to the departure airport for free only for the first such flight of the day, and returned to its previous stand right after the report or a cancellation.
Days run in UTC: if you have not departed on the flight of the day or the challenge by the rollover, the booking is released. A flight already under way is left alone.
Any aircraft type will do; rank and rating are checked as on any flight.

Flying on VATSIM

Link your VATSIM CID in your profile once, and the platform checks by itself whether you are online while the tracker records the flight. There is no “I flew online” checkbox. If you were online for most of the flight, a bonus is added to revenue and XP, shown as its own line in the debrief.

Flying on the network is optional, and flying offline costs you nothing. IVAO and other networks are not supported.

The briefing has a “VATSIM flight plan” block: its button opens the VATSIM filing form already filled in, from your SimBrief plan or from the booking. You file it yourself, signed in with your own account, and the callsign must match the one you connect with. Equipment and time en route are estimates, and check the weather at the alternate yourself.

The “ATC now” block on the airport page and in the briefing shows the live ATIS and the network controllers at the airport and above it. The ATIS text highlights runways, approach, transition level, QNH and weather, and an automatic decode below it lists the runways assigned for landing and takeoff and what to set before departure. The airport card on the live map shows the same decode. “ATC en route” in the briefing lists the positions along your route with the time you pass them: online now, booked, or how often someone is usually there. Nobody on? Then it is UNICOM 122.800.

Live map

The Live map shows everyone in the air right now, each as a silhouette of its type pointing along its track. Live pilots are blue, your airline’s fleet purple, other fleets grey, and a ferry is drawn as an outline. The legend above the map is also a filter: a tap hides a group, and the choice is remembered.

Click an aircraft or a row in the “Who's flying” board to open its card with the route; “Follow” keeps it centred, and you can share a link that follows it. If you are flying yourself, the map opens on your flight, and “To me” brings you back. The arrows button expands the map to the whole window, Esc shrinks it.

The “VATSIM” chip adds network pilots as translucent steel silhouettes; zoomed in on an airport you also see those on the ground. A pilot’s card shows the route, the path on the map and “Listen to its radio” in VATSIM Listen. Next to an airport code, a green arrow with a number shows network aircraft waiting to depart and a red one shows those that have landed. Clicking an airport lists its network traffic: on the ground, departed and inbound with an arrival time. To be recognised outside an Air Virtua flight, switch on “Show me on the VATSIM map” on the Pilot tab of your profile.

The “ATC” chip shades staffed areas in the VATSIM map colours: areas teal, combined areas magenta, approaches outlined in orange. Letters at an airport: D clearance delivery, G ground, T tower, A ATIS. Unstaffed areas have a faint border, airport codes appear as you zoom in, and clicking an area shows its stations and traffic load. Controller bookings for the next 24 hours get a dotted outline with the callsign and UTC time, for example “ULLL_APP 16–19Z”; clicking anywhere in such an area shows whether the booking is on now or how soon it starts, who booked it, and the time on your clock. A booked controller may not show up.

Zoomed out, the map folds fleet aircraft standing on the ground into a number under the airport code: "↑2" are taxiing out, "↓1" have already landed. The button on the right sets the aircraft size from 75 to 150%, and the choice is kept in your profile.

For playing controller there are a ruler, “Intervals” and “Vectors” on the right under the scale: distance and bearing, spacing between aircraft, and a line 1, 2 or 5 minutes ahead along each path. Aircraft on a ruler or in a chain get a data tag: callsign, altitude and ground speed, with the altitude below 10,000 ft shown with the letter A and above it as a flight level.

Without a tracker, without a schedule

Manual report: for a flight without the tracker, you enter the time, landing and fuel yourself. The score then rests on the landing alone.
Free flight: any aircraft and any route outside the schedule. It counts towards your personal hours, pays a little XP and leaves the airline’s economy alone. The route comes from your SimBrief plan, but if you took off or landed at another airport, that airport is recorded. Its page explains the score with the same “Why this” as a booked flight.

My flights Download the tracker

Next · Chapter 4Why your score drops