Getting Started
FSCharter can have a steep learning curve, so this guide is designed to get you up and running as quickly as possible.
Attention Early Access Players! The links in this document won't work. Please replace https://fscharter.net with https://beta.fscharter.net.
Creating an Account
Welcome to FSCharter! Before we get started, you'll need to create a free account. Don't worry, it's quick and easy!
Installing the X-Plane Plugin
The X-Plane plugin is the magic that allows you to fly your jobs, track your flights, board passengers and log your achievements on the platform.
Firstly, download the latest version of the plugin by logging into FSCharter, navigating to the menu in the top right hand corner of the page and clicking on Download X-Plane Plugin.
Once the download has completed, extract the FSCharter.zip file into your <X-Plane11>/Resources/pluginsfolder. You should end up with a folder structure that looks like this:
<X-Plane11>/
Resources/
plugins/
FSCharter/
lin_x64/FSCharter.xpl
mac_x64/FSCharter.xpl
win_x64/FSCharter.xpl
Licences.html
ReadMe.htmlFSCharter is currently available for X-Plane.
Purchasing Your First Aircraft
When you created a new account on FSCharter we gave you enough funds finance your first aircraft. Once you've logged into FSCharter, head over to the Aircraft Showroom to see what you can afford.
Let's grow from humble beginnings. Purchase or finance a brand new Cessna 172 Skyhawk by selecting the aircraft and clicking on the Purchase or Finance button in the Actions panel.
Financing an aircraft only requires a 10% deposit but the aircraft costs you more in the long run.
After completing and verifying the form, you are now the proud owner of a brand new Cessna 172! Let's head over to My Aircraft to get a better look at this beauty.
The My Aircraft page gives you a complete overview of all aircraft that you have access to. It includes aircraft that you've purchased and financed, in addition to company owned aircraft that you have been granted access to. Click on More Details to take us to the Aircraft Overview page.
The Aircraft Overview page gives you critical information about your aircraft and allows you to perform basic operations like refuelling and finance management. But wait, what's that big, red, important looking banner I hear you cry? The banner is there to let us know that the aircraft doesn't have a physical location in the world. Yes, we placed it at an airport, but we need to let FSCharter know exactly where the aircraft is before we start our first flight.
So then, before we load up X-Plane, we need to set the location. We can either do this by clicking on the red banner or by selecting Set Ground Location in the Actions menu.
Once you've navigated your way to the Set Location page, click on the map where you'd like to place your aircraft. Be careful, this is where you will spawn in the simulator!
Next up, we need fuel! Use the Breadcrumb or Recent Pages widgets to jump back to your aircraft's overview page and select the Refuel button in the top right hand corner of the screen.
The Refuel dialog allows you to purchase fuel for your aircraft and de-fuel if you've purchased too much. Each type of fuel has a different price, but because our little Cessna uses Avgas, the platform has selected it for us. Go ahead and purchase some fuel!
If you order more fuel than your aircraft can hold, it'll be wasted.
Great! We now have a fully fuelled aircraft ready to go. Now we just need some passengers!
Configuring Your First Job
Let's head on over to the Job Marketplace to pick up our first private job. The screen may look daunting at first, but it's laid out logically and we work our way through it from top to bottom.
First up, let's choose the aircraft we want to fly. We don't have much choice at the moment but the search bar can come in useful when we start to build up a fleet.
After we've selected the aircraft that we want to fly, FSCharter will generate or update the departing jobs for the airport where our aircraft is currently stationed and places them on a map for us, sorted by airport size.
After selecting a destination you will be presented with the Job Configuration screen. Think of this screen as a way to offer your service to all departing passengers waiting at the airport. On this screen you will set the departure and arrival times and the number of passengers that you are willing to take. You may want to limit the number of passengers that will board so that you can pick some more up en-route or for payload reasons.
FSCharter will automatically set your departure time to 30 minutes from now but you're free to change this to any time within the next two hours. For now, let's keep this as the suggested departure time.
Let's go ahead and set the arrival time and the number of passengers we're willing to take. If we set the arrival time too far into the future, passengers won't purchase a ticket and will instead wait for a faster service from another player.
When you accept a job you are responsible for delivering the passengers to their destination on time. FSCharter will allow you to accept multiple jobs and over-allocate your aircraft so be careful! Any passengers that can't fit on your aircraft when they board will be abandoned and you will be charged a fee for placing them on another service.
Great, we have our first job! Let's check it out in My Jobs. This screen shows you all Scheduled, Boarded, In-Progress, Completed, Invalid and Abandoned jobs. By using the buttons above the map you can switch between these types. In our case we only have the one job, which will be automatically selected when we load the page.
That's all we need to do - let's fire up X-Plane!
Flying Your First Job
Load up X-Plane and select the aircraft model that matches your aircraft in FSCharter (in this case, a Cessna 172). You can select any location for your aircraft as the FSCharter plugin will move you to the correct location.
Once your aircraft has loaded, you should be presented with the FSCharter Settings. Enter your credentials and log in! If you are not presented with the Settings window, open it manually from the Plugins menu on the menu bar in X-Plane. (More details here.)
Early access users may need to select Early Access as the environment in the FSCharter plugin settings.
After logging in, you will be shown the Select Aircraft window.
Go ahead and select our new Cessna 172 and click Select Aircraft. You'll notice that X-Plane will move you to the position that you defined on the FSCharter map. (More details here.)
Some third-party aircraft don't like being moved around and can behave erratically after the FSCharter plugin has placed them in the world. To compensate for this, automatic placement can be disabled from the FSCharter plugin Settings window.
Once we've selected an aircraft, the window changes to a Status window that allows to to view the status of the current flight and board passengers. Here we can see the the job that we configured in the FSCharter platform, ready to board. Ensure that the X is visible next to our passenger group and go ahead and click Board/Refuel to board the passengers and set the aircraft's fuel and payload in the simulator. (More details here.)
Do not manually change the fuel and payload in the simulator once it has been set by the plugin or you risk invalidating your flight.
Excellent! Now we have our aircraft boarded and fuelled. All that's left to do is deliver these passengers safely to their destination.
Once we're airborne, give the My Jobs page a refresh and you'll see that the Job's status is set to In-Progress and that there is an In-Flight badge to the right of the Job listing. Let's click on the badge to take us to the Flight Overview page so that we can follow it.
The Flight Overview page is automatically updated every 10 seconds, so you don't need to refresh the page.
Now go and deliver those passengers! Come back here once you've departed the runway.
Completing Your First Job
Congratulations, you've just completed your first job 🥳
Make your way to parking, apply your parking brake and cut your engines. Your passengers will be automatically disembarked.
If you exit X-Plane before you disembark passengers, they will remain onboard and be forcefully disembarked after 1 hour. You will then be required to place your aircraft at the airport via the map on FSCharter before you can begin a new flight.
Let's head back to the platform and review our Job! Navigate your way to the My Jobs page and select the View Details button on the Job listing. Make sure you click on the Completed Jobs button on the top of the page first!
Great job! That concludes the Getting Started guide, but there's lots more to FSCharter than was covered here. Have a play around with the platform and let us know what you think by getting in touch on Discord or by raising a ticket on the service desk.
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