Scoring groups and failure rules

Watch the video: Let clean flights accept themselves

How your airline's PIREPs earn points, and which flights go to review, get rejected or need the pilot's reply.

Change the scoring rules

1. Open Staff → Operations → Scoring.
2. Change the numbers you want. Most fields show their default once you change them.
3. Use Try it at the bottom to see what a flight of a given distance, block time and landing rate would earn.
4. Click Save scoring.

When you save, Vaeroly re-scores your airline's past PIREPs with the new rules in the background. This can take a few minutes. Imported flights keep the points they came with.

Reset to defaults goes back to the standard rules. They follow airline practice: a landing is firm from 360 fpm and hard past 600 fpm, every block hour earns points, and safety slips such as a gear-up landing, the transponder off or a door open while moving cost points. An airline that saved its own numbers keeps them.

The numbers on this page apply to every aircraft in your fleet, from a Cessna to a jet. To give a type its own numbers, for example a later hard landing for GA aircraft, turn on Scoring per aircraft type and make a profile for it (see below). The Points per flight page and the pilots' Scoring rules page list what applies to your fleet.

What the page sets

• Every flight: points per completed flight, per 100 nm and per hour of block time.
• Points per hour by flight length (optional): your own hour bands, one per line: from, to (hours of block time), points per hour. For example 0 2 10, 2 4 15 and 4 99 20. A flight in a band earns that rate for all its hours, so a 3-hour flight gets 45 points. Flights in no band use the flat per-hour rate. Try it shows the result, the PIREP names the band, and pilots see the bands on the Scoring rules page.
• Landing: the fpm limits and points for a smooth, good and firm landing. Anything harder than firm is a hard landing and goes to review. Call a landing a crash when harder than (1000 fpm to start) only changes the word on the PIREP, not the points.
• Fairness (on Points per flight): Lowest score for a flight is 0 unless you turn it off, so a flight never takes points away (the penalty lines still show, and a last line brings the total up to 0). A check that happens more than once costs its points once per flight unless you choose Costs its points each time, up to 3 times.
• Stable approach gates: the heights above the runway where ACARS checks the approach.
• Bonuses and other points (on Points per flight) and Review triggers: block time off schedule, high touchdown G, overspeed, fuel against the SimBrief plan, on-time departure, flight of the day, duels and streaks.
• EFB checklists (with the EFB checklists switch on): Checklists completed for a flight whose every phase before the touchdown was completed before it; Checklist phase on time for each phase completed before the flight moved past its stage (the after-landing phases before filing); Checklist phase missed for each phase not completed, entered as a negative number like the other penalties (an after-landing phase not done yet when the PIREP is filed doesn't count: the pilot can still finish it for an hour). All three are 0 (off) until you set them and count only for flights filed after that. A flight with no checklist for its type gets no checklist lines and loses nothing. The PIREP lists each phase with its items, tick times and whether it was on time, for you to check when you review it.
• Flight checks from ACARS: faults like stalls, slew mode or engine start without the beacon, with their points. Each check costs its points once per flight, however often it happened, unless you change that under Fairness (the PIREP still shows the count). Checks a simulator can't report are skipped, never penalised. From ACARS 2.7 there are also nav lights, pitot heat and transponder checks at take-off; they start at 0 points.
• Bonus if clean: points a check earns when ACARS measured it and it didn't happen, for example +20 for no taxi overspeed. A check that wasn't measured earns nothing.
• Logged checks: a check set to 0 points and no review is only logged. The PIREP shows it as "logged, no points", and it isn't a fault: it doesn't take away the Clean flight bonus. The bonus goes only when a tripped check costs points, sends the flight to review, or is one of the checks for staff only (position jump, time acceleration). Give a check points or Review to make it count again. Saving the rules re-scores past PIREPs, so they follow it too.
• Time acceleration: how long a pilot may fly above 1× before the Simulation rate check counts (ACARS 2.8 and newer). The check sends the flight to staff; it costs no points.
• Touchdown zone (with Failure rules on): tick Judge where the touchdown was on the runway to check the touchdown point against the runway (needs the runway data on the server). Give it points if passed, points if failed, or an action.
• What happens: one menu per check says what it does to the flight besides its points: Points only, Send to review, Ask the pilot, Reject or Invalidate (the last three need their switches). When several checks apply to one flight, the harshest action wins: invalidate, then reject, then ask the pilot, then review.
• Rules that are off (set to 0 or left empty) are hidden when the Points per flight and Checks & penalties pages open. Click Show all rules to see and turn them on.
• On time: the on-time window and its points sit together. From 1 November 2026 an early departure counts as on time; only a late one can miss its time. Flights filed before keep their points, also when re-scored.
• System checks only for verified aircraft (Staff → Airline settings → Optional features): the lights, beacon, pitot heat and transponder checks count only when ACARS used an aircraft profile Vaeroly has verified for that add-on.

When a flight counts as flown online

About once a minute while ACARS reports the flight, Vaeroly looks for the pilot's VATSIM or IVAO number on the network. A check counts as online only when:

• the network shows the callsign of the booking, and
• the network has the pilot within 20 nm of where ACARS had the aircraft at that moment.

A flight is flown online when at least 70% of the checks count, that is, the pilot was online for at least 70% of the flight. Staff can change the share: Scoring → Points per flight, next to Flown on VATSIM / IVAO. The PIREP shows the share, for example "Flown on VATSIM · 92% online", or "40% on VATSIM: not counted as online". Otherwise it gets nothing that online gives: no online points or bonus, no network on the PIREP and in the statistics, and it counts as not flown online if your airline requires that. The PIREP gets a review flag saying why, for example "No online credit: the network callsign didn't match the booking" or "No online credit: network position 35 nm from ACARS". If some checks failed but the flight still counts online, the flag says so too.

When the network gives no position (or the feed is down), the pilot isn't punished: the check counts on the callsign alone, and if the credit rests on such checks the PIREP is flagged "Online credit given without a position check". The flight log shows each kind of failed check once.

This applies to flights filed from 3 October 2026. Earlier PIREPs keep their online credit, also when you re-score them.

Failure rules

If your airline has turned on Failure rules, the checks table gets an Arrival group. These are worked out from each ACARS PIREP:

• Diversion: landed more than a set distance from the planned arrival. The pilot and aircraft move to the airport they actually landed at.
• More than the allowed number of touchdowns.
• A long taxi-in.
• Paused for more than a set share of the flight.
• Two hard-landing levels. Only the worse level applies. These levels are also what the flight data report calls a very hard landing and, unless you set your own rate, what sends an aircraft for an inspection. Points for the landing still come from the landing bands above.
• Landing rate too soft: a measured landing softer than the level you set in Landing softer than, for example 50 fpm. A landing of a few fpm is often a float over the runway, slew, or a touchdown the simulator didn't report well, so staff take a look. It's off (0) until you set a level, and it costs no points unless you give it some.

Set a number to 0 to turn that rule off.

What a rule does to the flight

For each check you choose what happens:

• Review: the flight goes to the review queue instead of being accepted automatically.
• Reject: if your airline has turned on Automatic rejection, the PIREP is rejected as soon as it's filed, with the reason. That section also lets you reject landings harder than a set fpm, flights not flown online (when your airline requires it), block times too far off, or any penalty at all.
• Invalidate and Pilot must reply: if your airline has turned on Complete and invalidated PIREPs. An invalidated flight gets no hours and no points. Pilot must reply asks the pilot to explain before staff review it.

When several apply, the strongest wins: invalidate, then reject, then ask the pilot.

Scoring per aircraft type

If your airline has turned on Scoring per aircraft type, a card at the bottom lets you give some types their own rules, for example softer landing limits for widebodies.

1. Enter a name under New profile and click Create. It starts as a copy of the airline's rules.
2. Tick its aircraft types (a type can be in only one profile).
3. Change what differs and click Save profile.

Types in no profile use the airline's rules. With profiles on, landings can also be scored On a curve instead of in three steps.

Bands and extra point rules

Every airline scores the same way. The Bands and extra point rules section of the Points page adds:

• Starting points for every flight.
• Band tables for the landing (vertical speed, G-force or both), flight length and route tags, one band per line.
• Departure and arrival windows, fuel limits, and points for flying online, shared cockpit and flights in a row.
• Engine, flaps and preparation rules (ACARS 2.5 and later).

All of them are off until you fill them in. With Scoring per aircraft type on, Add example profiles creates six ready-made profiles as a starting point. They have no aircraft types, so nothing changes until you assign some.