Career Mode User Guide
FSFO Career Mode User Guide
Career Mode is connected to Pilot Portal. FSFO still monitors and scores the flight inside the simulator, but your career profile, company, schedule, rules, training, and progression are managed through Pilot Portal.
Most important rule: If you want the flight to count toward career progress, make sure Career Snapshot shows the correct assignment before you fly. A flight can be flown and scored without advancing your career if the route, airport, aircraft, schedule, or rating does not match.
Overview
Career Mode gives you one persistent pilot identity instead of treating every flight as a standalone session. Your pilot can join companies, receive schedules, earn money, complete type training, build seniority, and move through ranks over time.
Your career can track:
| Career item | What it means for the user |
|---|---|
| Pilot identity | Your persistent career profile in Pilot Portal. |
| Company and rank | The airline or company you fly for, plus your current career rank. |
| Schedule and assignment | The next career leg FSFO expects you to fly. |
| Type ratings | Aircraft qualifications that may be required before a flight can count. |
| Scores and progression | Your performance, average score, pay, balance, promotions, and career growth. |
Quick Start
Use this as the basic workflow when you want a career flight to count:
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sign in to Pilot Portal. |
| 2 | Open Career Snapshot in FSFO. |
| 3 | Review your company, rank, next assignment, current location, type rating, fatigue, and enabled rules. |
| 4 | Load the correct aircraft and start at the correct departure airport. |
| 5 | Fly the assigned route only after FSFO says the career flight is ready. |
| 6 | Let FSFO score the flight and upload the result at the end. |
User tip: Career Snapshot is your final preflight check. If something looks wrong there, fix it before starting the flight.
Career Snapshot
The main Career page in FSFO is Career Snapshot. It is not meant to replace the full Pilot Portal. Instead, it gives you the important live career information you need before departure.
The top buttons are used for:
| Button | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Help | Opens the in-app Career guide. |
| Contract | Opens the current career agreement and scoring summary. |
| Portal | Opens the Pilot Portal side of Career Mode where schedules, bidding, training, and company management are handled. |
Career Rule Settings
Career rules are synced from Pilot Portal and then enforced by FSFO during readiness checks and post-flight progression.
| Rule | Plain-English meaning |
|---|---|
| Start from last airport | You must begin near your saved career location. FSFO checks that you are within 10 NM of that airport. |
| Fatal crash starts over | A fatal crash can have major career consequences according to the synced career policy. |
| Must fly scheduled flight | Only the next assigned leg counts toward career progression. |
| Passenger comfort | FSFO tracks passenger comfort and can apply comfort-related score penalties. |
| Can be fired | Poor performance can lead to warnings and possible termination from your company. |
| Enable fatigue | FSFO checks recent workload. If fatigue is too high, the flight may not be ready. |
| Schedule based on rank | Your rank affects the maximum distance of generated schedule legs. |
| Must have type rating | You need the correct aircraft rating before the flight can count cleanly. |
| Lock schedule until complete | You cannot simply replace an incomplete schedule unless the portal workflow allows it. |
| Application based on rank | Your rank affects which company tiers you can apply to and your hiring chance. |
| Upload data | The career result is intended to upload through the portal-backed workflow. |
Readiness Checks
Before a career flight counts cleanly, FSFO can validate your sign-in, company, assignment, departure location, type rating, fatigue, and enabled career rules.
| Common blocker | What to check |
|---|---|
| Wrong departure airport | Make sure you are starting from the airport shown in Career Snapshot. |
| Wrong route | The departure and arrival must match the next pending assignment when schedule enforcement is active. |
| Wrong aircraft or missing rating | Confirm the aircraft profile and required type rating. |
| Fatigue too high | Career readiness fails if fatigue is 75% or higher. |
Schedules and Bidding
Schedules are generated through Pilot Portal. FSFO uses the active schedule for next-leg validation, progression credit, schedule completion, and schedule-lock enforcement.
Schedule distance by rank
| Rank | Maximum leg distance when rank scheduling is enabled |
|---|---|
| Cadet | 600 NM |
| Second Officer | 1,200 NM |
| First Officer | 2,500 NM |
| Captain | 5,000 NM |
| Senior Captain | 10,000 NM |
Bidding and reserve
Career bidding is handled through the portal's Bid & Reserve workflow. You stack bids from the available route list, submit them through the portal, and review the live Award Chance.
Award Chance is influenced by both your current rank and your completed company-leg history. Senior pilots generally have a stronger bidding profile, but consistent company flying also helps.
Current workflow note: Bidding is no longer documented as a comma-separated airport-pair text box. Use the portal Bid & Reserve workflow.
When a Flight Counts Toward Progression
A career flight does not automatically count toward career progression. If Must fly scheduled flight is enabled, FSFO compares your actual flight against the next pending assignment.
For the leg to count, the flight must match:
| Requirement | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Scheduled departure airport | You must start from the departure airport assigned by the schedule. |
| Scheduled arrival airport | You must arrive at the assigned destination. |
| Next pending leg | If the schedule is ordered, you must fly the next leg in sequence. |
If the flight does not meet the progression rules, it may still be flown and scored, but it will not update career progression items such as Total Legs, Average Score, Company Legs, Contract Remaining Legs, Balance, Rank, Career Tier, or Pay per hour.
Scoring
Career Mode stores both a Landing Score and a Total Score. They are related, but they are not the same.
Total Score
Each career flight begins at Total Score = 100. FSFO then subtracts penalties for critical events, aircraft configuration, lights, speed/angle issues, general performance, passenger comfort, and passenger outcome.
Current formula: Total Score = Pilot Score - Comfort Penalty - Passenger Outcome Penalty
A flight is currently marked Qualified for Progression when Total Score is 90 or greater.
Major score deductions
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Critical | Crash detected = score set to 0; stall, overspeed, overweight, or unstable approach = -10 each. |
| Configuration | Flap, gear, spoiler, G-force, and fuel-management problems. |
| Lights | Navigation, beacon, strobe, and landing-light mistakes. |
| Speed / angle | Excess pitch, bank, low-altitude IAS, or taxi ground speed. |
| General | Landing score below passing threshold. |
Unstable approach check: FSFO evaluates unstable approach between 1000 ft AGL and 100 ft AGL. It can trigger if vertical speed is outside -1200 to -300 FPM or bank angle is greater than 25 degrees.
Landing Score
Landing Score is calculated separately from the rest of the Total Score model.
| Landing factor | Weight |
|---|---|
| Vertical speed | 35% |
| Touchdown G-force | 15% |
| Runway threshold distance | 30% |
| Runway centerline | 20% |
A Landing Score below 80 triggers the landing-evaluation penalty.
Passenger Comfort
If Passenger comfort is enabled, FSFO tracks comfort events during flight and evaluates passenger outcome at shutdown.
Comfort can include taxi speed, hard braking, jerky turns, G-force, bank angle, pitch-rate changes, slip/skid, and landing firmness. At shutdown, FSFO also evaluates Satisfaction, Anxiety, Health, Hunger, and Thirst.
Fatigue
If Enable fatigue is turned on, FSFO calculates fatigue from recent leg count and recent block hours. It looks at the last 24 hours, last 72 hours, and last 7 days.
| Window | What FSFO checks |
|---|---|
| 24 hours | Recent acute workload. |
| 72 hours | Short-term workload. |
| 7 days | Weekly workload. |
The fatigue result is capped at 100 and rounded to the nearest whole percent. Career readiness fails if fatigue is 75% or higher.
Progression
This section explains how your career moves forward over time.
Companies and contract commitments
| Company tier | Required contract legs |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 30 legs |
| Tier 2 | 60 legs |
| Tier 3 | 90 legs |
| Tier 4 | 120 legs |
| Tier 5 | 150 legs |
If you leave a company before completing the required commitment, a contract-break fine can be applied.
Ranks and promotions
Career Mode uses five ranks: Cadet, Second Officer, First Officer, Captain, and Senior Captain. Promotions are based on total legs and average score. Before any promotion is possible, your Average Score must be at least 92.0.
| Promotion | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Second Officer | 50 total legs |
| First Officer | 125 total legs |
| Captain | 200 total legs |
| Senior Captain | 350 total legs |
Career tier and pay
Each company has a base hourly pay rate. Career Tier adds a fixed hourly raise on top of that base rate.
| Career tier | Hourly raise |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | +$0/hr |
| Tier 2 | +$5/hr |
| Tier 3 | +$10/hr |
| Tier 4 | +$18/hr |
| Tier 5 | +$28/hr |
Pay formula: Final hourly pay = company base hourly pay + current Career Tier raise.
Company Applications
If Application based on rank is enabled, company access is restricted by rank and tier.
| Rank | Current hiring chances |
|---|---|
| Cadet | Tier 1 = 100% |
| Second Officer | Tier 1 = 100%; Tier 2 = 50% |
| First Officer | Tier 1 = 100%; Tier 2 = 100%; Tier 3 = 50% |
| Captain | Tier 1 = 100%; Tier 2 = 100%; Tier 3 = 75% |
| Senior Captain | Tier 1 = 100%; Tier 2 = 100%; Tier 3 = 95% |
If you are rejected by the same company, there is currently a 7-day wait before retrying.
Type Ratings and Training
If Must have type rating is enabled, FSFO verifies that your pilot has the required rating for the aircraft being flown. A missing rating can block the flight from being ready or prevent it from counting cleanly.
There are two training paths:
| Training type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Private Training | Uses personal funds immediately. It cannot be started if it would push your pilot balance below -75,000. |
| Company Training | Extends the current contract instead of charging the full training cost directly to your balance. |
| Type rating group | Training days | Private training | Company training |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRJ / F7X | 5 days | 15,000 × regional multiplier | +20 contract legs |
| A32 / B73 | 7 days | 25,000 × regional multiplier | +35 contract legs |
| A31 / A33 / B76 / B77 / MD1 / MD11 | 10 days | 45,000 × regional multiplier | +60 contract legs |
| Other supported ratings | 7 days | 20,000 × regional multiplier | +30 contract legs |
Discipline
If Can be fired is enabled, FSFO tracks company warnings and termination risk. Warnings do not begin immediately; a pilot must complete at least 5 company legs before warning thresholds are evaluated.
| Warning type | Warning threshold |
|---|---|
| Critical errors | 10% of company legs |
| Configuration errors | 25% of company legs |
| Speed errors | 35% of company legs |
| Lights errors | 50% of company legs |
A pilot can be terminated if warnings reach 3, the most recent Total Score is below 50, or total average score falls below 80.0. Termination can clear the company, reset company-related counters, clear the schedule, reduce rank by one level, and adjust career tier to match the new rank.
Bottom line: Career Mode rewards consistent, safe flying. A single bad flight may hurt your score, but repeated poor performance can affect your company status.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| My career flight is not ready | Confirm Pilot Portal sign-in, next assignment, departure airport, aircraft rating, and fatigue. |
| My flight did not count toward progression | If scheduled-flight enforcement is enabled, confirm you flew the next pending leg from the correct departure to the correct arrival. |
| I cannot generate a new schedule | If schedule lock is enabled, finish or clear the current schedule through the portal workflow first. |
| I was rejected by a company | Confirm your rank allows that company tier and wait out the 7-day retry cooldown if applicable. |
| My score seems lower than expected | Look for unstable approach, landing score below 80, low landing fuel, lighting/configuration mistakes, comfort penalties, or poor passenger outcome at shutdown. |
For initial setup help, see Getting Started. For voice features, see Voice Commands. For general problem solving, see Troubleshooting.
