Quick Start

The "normal procedure" to log a X-Plane flight with FSCharter

Note to Alpha and Beta testers: Links to FSCharter in the documentation refer to the production environment (fscharter.net), which might not yet be available. You need to replace "fscharter.net" with "beta.fscharter.net" to make the URLs work.

Also see

Getting Started

for an introduction to the FSCharter platform.

1. On FSCharter

   1. Go to your Aircraft list and make sure you own an aircraft for which you have a matching aircraft model available in your X-Plane installation. Buy or finance an aircraft if necessary.

   2. A newly acquired aircraft needs to be positioned on FSCharter, ie. placed at a specific location at the home airport.

   3. Go to the Job Marketplace and agree on one or more jobs for the aircraft, ie. passenger groups to be transported from the aircraft's current airport to some destination airport.

2. In X-Plane

   1. In X-Plane's flight configuration select the matching aircraft model (X-Plane 11 Desktop Manual). Do not yet start flight preparations, first connect to FSCharter:

   2. If not already open, open the Select Aircraft Window and select the FSCharter aircraft to use.

   3. Click [Select Aircraft].

      1. Your X-Plane model will be validated against the FSCharter model.

      2. Your X-Plane aircraft will be placed at the position as recorded by FSCharter. This might include moving the simulator to another airport, during which X-Plane's standard scenery loading screen appears.

      3. Your fuel level in X-Plane will be set to the fuel level as recorded by FSCharter.

   4. On Success, the Status Window opens and requests you to board the aircraft: Select the jobs (ie. passenger groups) that you now want to take onboard from the list of available jobs and then click [Board / Refuel].

   5. Boarding is recorded on FSCharter and the passenger will get on board, i.e. the payload weight of your X-Plane aircraft will be set.

   6. Also, fuel is (once again) updated as recorded by FSCharter, just in case you bought more on FSCharter.

   7. Now only power up your aircraft and start your flight preparations. As different 3rd party aircraft behave very differently, make sure that payload and fuel is correct and trim your aircraft properly:

      1. The plugin can only set total payload. It does not touch centre of gravity.

      2. Some complex aircraft have their own mechanism of loading the plane and don't respond to the plugin's attempt of setting the payload. Then go to your aircraft settings and distribute your passengers there.

      3. Fuel will be evenly distributed across all tanks of the plane. This might result in imperfect trim. You can now change the fuel distribution across tanks of your plane, but pay attention that you do not accidentally increase the total amount of fuel too much: The plugin verifies that fuel on the plane never increases. If it detects a fuel increase then the plugin will reduce the total amount of fuel again. But it will keep the relative ratio between tanks, so that your trim effort should not be lost entirely.

      4. Some complex aircraft might not respond to how the plugin sets fuel. The plugin will then warn you: "Cannot set your aircraft's fuel level! Set fuel yourself to <amount>." Go to your aircraft settings and fill in an appropriate level of fuel yourself. Don't over-fill! If your 3rd party X-Plane aircraft behaves unusual after position / fuel / payload updates have a look at aircraft-specific options in the settings.

   8. You are ready for takeoff! Start your engines and fly your plane. Follow the status in the Status Window. You may want to click on [Open on FSCharter] to see your flight being tracked on a map right on FSCharter while the plugin regularly sends position information to the platform. Click on [?] to learn that help is always available.

   9. Land at your destination airport and slow down. Below 40kn the flight will be considered "landed", but has not yet finished.

   10. Continue to taxi to your parking position, set the parking brake, and switch off the engines. Those passengers, who reached their destination airport, will be off-boarded while the others stay on board.

After a moment, the plugin offers the boarding screen again. From here you have the following options:

• Select the next jobs starting from this airport. If you haven't agreed any yet, then go to FSCharter's Job Marketplace and do so, then click [Refresh].
• Select a different aircraft: [Change Aircraft] brings you back to the Select Aircraft Window.
• Exit X-Plane. All your status has been properly saved to FSCharter, it would be save to exit.

Avoid exiting X-Plane between take off and disembarking as your status would not be a final one on FSCharter. If you do exit mid-flight before parking, then you have an unfinished flight on FSCharter that you need to revert there, which means you will be set back to your departure airport with no pax boarded.