Sky Airways
Airline rules
How Sky Airways works, from joining to parking at the gate. The numbers on this page come straight from the airline's current settings, so they are always the ones in force.
Membership
- New pilots register on the website and start flying once staff approve the application.
- One account per person, under your real first and last name.
- In your profile you choose who sees your name on the live map and flight board: everyone, signed-in pilots only, or nobody (shown as Sky Crew).
- Be respectful to other pilots and staff. Staff may suspend accounts that break these rules or try to cheat the system.
Where you and the aircraft are
- You start at the hub you chose when you registered.
- After an approved flight, you and the aircraft are at the airport where you actually landed, including after a diversion.
- A rejected flight moves nothing: you and the aircraft stay at the departure airport.
- You can only book flights that depart from the airport where you are.
- Aircraft move only by being flown. Staff can relocate an aircraft by hand, always with a reason that is logged.
- Transfers to another airport are a staff tool until the airline economy launches.
Booking a flight
A flight can be booked only when every condition below is met. The flight finder tells you which one is missing.
- R1The route is active, valid today and operates on today's weekday.
- R2You are at the departure airport.
- R3A suitable aircraft is parked at the departure airport.
- R4That aircraft is available: not booked, flying, waiting for review or in maintenance.
- R5The aircraft type is allowed on the route.
- R6You hold an active type rating for the aircraft type.
- R7Your pilot status is active.
- R8You have no other active booking.
- R9Your crew rest after the last landing is over.
- R10Your rank meets the route's minimum rank.
- R11The aircraft's fuel does not exceed its tank capacity.
- A booking that is not started within 4 hours expires and releases the aircraft.
- You can cancel a booking before the flight starts. Fuel already loaded stays in the aircraft.
- There is no crew rest requirement right now.
- Ferry flights move an empty aircraft to any active airport within its range.
Dispatch
- Before flying, open Dispatch for your booking: set the load, plan the flight, fuel the aircraft and release it. After release, load and fuel cannot change.
- Sky Airways sets the passengers and cargo when you book, from demand on the route. Pilots cannot change them; plan and load the simulator with exactly these figures.
- Passengers and cargo must fit the seats, the cargo capacity and the maximum zero fuel weight. Each passenger counts as 84 kg with baggage.
- Plan with SimBrief from the dispatch page and import the plan. It must be for the same departure and arrival, and less than 24 hours old.
- You cannot load less fuel than is already in the tanks, more than the tanks hold, or so much that the take-off weight exceeds MTOW. Fuel costs v$ 0.85 per kg.
- Set the same payload and fuel in the simulator. Differences from the plan cost points.
Flying with ACARS
- ACARS starts only flights that were released on the dispatch page.
- Start the flight on the ground, stopped, within 50 nm of the departure airport.
- Keep ACARS running for the whole flight. If it closes, open it again: the same flight continues where it stopped.
- A flight that sends no data for 30 minutes is closed automatically and goes to staff review.
- A simulation rate above 1×, slew mode, teleporting or adding fuel in flight rejects the flight.
- Pausing is allowed, but more than 15 minutes in total, or more than 20% of the block time, sends the flight to review.
- A report without a takeoff is rejected: there is no flight to credit.
- At the gate, shut the engines down and set the parking brake. ACARS then offers to end the flight and ends it by itself two minutes later.
- Test flights from ACARS development builds are never approved automatically.
Scores and review
Every flight starts at 100 points. The scoring rules below take points off, add bonuses, or ask staff to decide.
- Rejected automatically: a rule that rejects is broken, or the score is below 30.
- Staff review: a rule asks for review, or the score is below 60.
- Approved automatically: every other flight.
- 3% of flights are picked at random for a quality check.
- A comment for the reviewer sends the flight to review.
- Staff do not review their own flights unless they hold the permission to do so.
- If ACARS failed but you completed the flight, file a claim with evidence. Staff review every claim.
Scoring rules
The airline's default scoring rules, as they are set right now.
| Code | Rule | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Landing | ||
| LND-01 | Points for the landing rate:-50 … -250 fpm: 0-250 … -400 fpm: −5-400 … -500 fpm: −12-500 … -600 fpm: −20 | By landing rate |
| LND-02 | Landing harder than -600 fpm or above 2.1 G. | Staff review · −40 |
| LND-03 | Landing harder than -1,000 fpm or above 3 G counts as a crash. | Rejects the flight |
| LND-04 | Touching down again within 10 s of the first touchdown. | −8 per bounce |
| LND-05 | A touchdown softer than -20 fpm, which is not realistic. | Staff review · −5 |
| LND-06 | Pitch at touchdown outside 0° to 10°. | −10 |
| LND-07 | Bank at touchdown more than 6°. | −8 |
| LND-08 | Landing with the gear up. | Rejects the flight |
| LND-09 | Landing weight more than 500 kg above the maximum landing weight. | Staff review · −15 |
| LND-10 | Landing somewhere other than the destination or the planned alternate. | Staff review |
| LND-11 | Touching down more than 900 m past the runway threshold. | Coming later |
| LND-12 | Touching down more than 15 m from the runway centerline. | Coming later |
| Takeoff | ||
| TKO-01 | Take-off weight above the maximum take-off weight. | Staff review · −20 |
| TKO-02 | Pitch above 15° at liftoff. | −8 |
| TKO-03 | Bank above 5° at liftoff. | −5 |
| TKO-04 | Tailstrike: pitch beyond the aircraft's limit while on the ground. | Staff review · −25 |
| Weight | ||
| WGT-01 | Zero fuel weight more than 3% away from the dispatch plan; more than 8% goes to review. | −5 |
| Speed | ||
| SPD-01 | Faster than 250 kt (plus 10 kt tolerance) below 10,000 ft for 10 s or more. | −10 |
| SPD-02 | Overspeed warning (Vmo/Mmo). | −15 |
| SPD-03 | Flying faster than the flap limit speed. | Coming later |
| SPD-04 | Faster than the gear limit speed with the gear down for 3 s or more. | −10 |
| SPD-05 | Stall warning in flight. | Staff review · −20 |
| Taxi | ||
| TAX-01 | Taxiing faster than 30 kt for 5 s or more; above 40 kt counts double, up to 15 points in total. | −5 |
| TAX-02 | Taxi out longer than 25 minutes. | −3 |
| Configuration | ||
| CFG-01 | Beacon off while an engine is running. | −5 |
| CFG-02 | Landing lights off below 10,000 ft. | −3 |
| CFG-03 | Strobe lights off in flight. | −2 |
| CFG-04 | Seatbelt sign off during taxi or below 10,000 ft. | −2 |
| CFG-05 | Transponder not on in flight. | −2 |
| CFG-06 | Flaps up for takeoff. | −8 |
| CFG-07 | Speed brakes out below 1,000 ft above the ground. | −4 |
| CFG-08 | Gear not down at 1,000 ft above the ground. | −10 |
| CFG-09 | Parking brake not set at the gate. | −2 |
| CFG-10 | Engines started in the wrong order. | Coming later |
| Fuel | ||
| FUEL-01 | Fuel increasing in flight. | Rejects the flight |
| FUEL-02 | Landing with less fuel than the planned final reserve. | Staff review · −15 |
| FUEL-03 | Take-off fuel more than 5% (at least 500 kg) away from the dispatch plan. | −5 |
| FUEL-04 | Carrying far more fuel than planned (tankering). | Coming later |
| Time | ||
| TIME-01 | Simulation rate above 1×. | Rejects the flight |
| TIME-02 | Paused longer than 900 s in total, or more than 20% of the block time. | Staff review · −10 |
| TIME-03 | Block time longer than the scheduled time × 1.6 + 20 minutes. | Staff review · −5 |
| TIME-04 | Slew mode used. | Rejects the flight |
| Integrity | ||
| INTEG-01 | Position jumps (teleporting), starting far from the departure airport, or a flown distance that cannot be right. | Rejects the flight |
| INTEG-02 | No touchdown recorded, touchdown data that does not match the log, or a lost connection. | Staff review |
| Approach | ||
| STAB-01 | Below 1,000 ft on approach: faster than Vref + 20 kt or sinking faster than 1,000 fpm for 5 s. | −8 |
| STAB-02 | More than 1 dot off the glide path below 1,000 ft. | Coming later |
| Network | ||
| NET-01 | Flown online on VATSIM or IVAO. | +5 bonus |
| Schedule | ||
| SCH-01 | Departing more than 2 hours away from the scheduled time. | −5 |
| General | ||
| GEN-01 | Random quality check. | Staff review |
| GEN-02 | You left a comment for the reviewer. | Staff review |
| GEN-03 | The aircraft in the simulator is not linked to this fleet yet. | Staff review |
Ranks and points
Ranks go up automatically after an approved flight once you have both the hours and the flights. They never go down automatically.
Points for a flight = block hours × your rank's points per hour × score ÷ 100 × route and network multipliers.
| Rank | Minimum hours | Minimum flights | Points per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cadet | 0 | 0 | 100 |
| Second Officer | 25 | 10 | 120 |
| First Officer | 100 | 40 | 140 |
| Senior First Officer | 250 | 100 | 160 |
| Captain | 500 | 200 | 180 |
| Senior Captain | 1,000 | 400 | 200 |
| Commander | 2,000 | 800 | 220 |
Taking care of the aircraft
- A landing harder than -600 fpm, or above 2.1 G, sends the aircraft to inspection before it flies again.
- A tailstrike also sends the aircraft to maintenance.
- Aircraft need A and C checks after set hours and cycles, and are held for maintenance when a check is due.
- The fuel left in the tanks after landing stays with the aircraft for the next pilot.
Weather categories
METARs on the website and in ACARS are labelled with the FAA flight category.
- VFR
- Green: visibility over 5 SM and cloud base above 3,000 ft
- MVFR
- Blue: visibility 3–5 SM or cloud base 1,000–3,000 ft
- IFR
- Red: visibility 1–3 SM or cloud base 500–1,000 ft
- LIFR
- Purple: visibility under 1 SM or cloud base below 500 ft