Primer: general operations
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:32 am
FSEconomy is an environment that models:
- a persistent, worldwide fleet of aircraft (including location, fuel state, payload, and required maintenance programs)
- revenue from conducting charter/cargo operations
- revenue for aircraft owners for the rental of aircraft
- revenue for FBO owners for the ground crew fees associated with the execution of charter jobs, revenue from fuel and supply sales, revenue from conducting aircraft maintenance and repair
At a high level, FSE generates paid jobs between airports. A job is generally either carrying a paying passenger (which takes up seats on the aircraft), or is simply a cargo job (doesn't require seats but contributes to the payload). Pilots claim the jobs, execute the charters and are paid (virtually) at the completion of the job.
FSE allows people to form named groups. A group can own aircraft and facilities and can snap up charter jobs. Once a charter job has been claimed by a group, it's no longer available to the general public. The significance of this will be explained shortly.
As a pilot, you can own/lease an aircraft, you can rent an aircraft, or you can fly an aircraft that's owned/leased by one a group of which you are a member. If you own/lease an aircraft, you can fly the aircraft yourself, you can rent it out to other pilots.
Flying for a group vs flying for an individual:
There are two radically different ways of conducting flights on FSE. Any given hop will be flown will be considered as a group flight, or a flight for an individual. For individual flights, the pilot receives the proceeds from the charter, minus fuel, rental, and FBO expenses. For group flights, the pilot receives a fixed dollar amount for the flight (known in advance of the flight, of course). The GROUP covers all of the expenses associated with the flight.
Groups often have their own aircraft, and can even have jobs generated just for them which are never made available to the public (either by owning an FBO, or by renting a gate at an FBO).
As a pilot, you can decide between conducting group flights or individual flights on a per flight basis. Remember, the money you make on a group flight is fixed...the group pockets the rest (or absorbs the loss, if you've made some tragic charter decisions on the group flight), whereas the money you make on an individual flight is purely a function of how efficiently you can conduct the flight, and load it up with passenger/cargo.
Making money:
- it's common for new users to simply rent a plane, add ONE assignment and then conduct a flight. That's fine, however, it's much more likely that you're going to want to execute MULTIPLE charters at the same time. Take the time to add MULTIPLE jobs to your 'my flights' page and then execute them all at once. It can certainly become an interesting exercise to pack the plane with people and cargo (two separate things), maximizing your ability to make money in a given hour of flight.
- here's a sample scenario. You can rent a Baron (carries 5 pax) and fill it up with jobs for airport B and airport C. You fly from A to B, completing a portion of your charters. At airport B, you find more jobs that terminate at airport C and load your plane to the gills one more time. You land at airport C and pocket the cash from all the remaining jobs. Had you simply loaded up the plane at airport A with a plane full of people destined for airport C, you might have made less money.
How to get started:
- sign up for a forum account (http://fseforums.com)
- request an FSE account by posting in the Account Requests forum.
- once you receive your account activation email (usually within a few hours), sign in to the FSE site (http://www.fseconomy.com)
- read the 'Getting started' tutorial in the FSE forum
- at some point, you really SHOULD read the actual manual, too, it contains little important tidbits to help you get the most from this virtual world.
- a persistent, worldwide fleet of aircraft (including location, fuel state, payload, and required maintenance programs)
- revenue from conducting charter/cargo operations
- revenue for aircraft owners for the rental of aircraft
- revenue for FBO owners for the ground crew fees associated with the execution of charter jobs, revenue from fuel and supply sales, revenue from conducting aircraft maintenance and repair
At a high level, FSE generates paid jobs between airports. A job is generally either carrying a paying passenger (which takes up seats on the aircraft), or is simply a cargo job (doesn't require seats but contributes to the payload). Pilots claim the jobs, execute the charters and are paid (virtually) at the completion of the job.
FSE allows people to form named groups. A group can own aircraft and facilities and can snap up charter jobs. Once a charter job has been claimed by a group, it's no longer available to the general public. The significance of this will be explained shortly.
As a pilot, you can own/lease an aircraft, you can rent an aircraft, or you can fly an aircraft that's owned/leased by one a group of which you are a member. If you own/lease an aircraft, you can fly the aircraft yourself, you can rent it out to other pilots.
Flying for a group vs flying for an individual:
There are two radically different ways of conducting flights on FSE. Any given hop will be flown will be considered as a group flight, or a flight for an individual. For individual flights, the pilot receives the proceeds from the charter, minus fuel, rental, and FBO expenses. For group flights, the pilot receives a fixed dollar amount for the flight (known in advance of the flight, of course). The GROUP covers all of the expenses associated with the flight.
Groups often have their own aircraft, and can even have jobs generated just for them which are never made available to the public (either by owning an FBO, or by renting a gate at an FBO).
As a pilot, you can decide between conducting group flights or individual flights on a per flight basis. Remember, the money you make on a group flight is fixed...the group pockets the rest (or absorbs the loss, if you've made some tragic charter decisions on the group flight), whereas the money you make on an individual flight is purely a function of how efficiently you can conduct the flight, and load it up with passenger/cargo.
Making money:
- it's common for new users to simply rent a plane, add ONE assignment and then conduct a flight. That's fine, however, it's much more likely that you're going to want to execute MULTIPLE charters at the same time. Take the time to add MULTIPLE jobs to your 'my flights' page and then execute them all at once. It can certainly become an interesting exercise to pack the plane with people and cargo (two separate things), maximizing your ability to make money in a given hour of flight.
- here's a sample scenario. You can rent a Baron (carries 5 pax) and fill it up with jobs for airport B and airport C. You fly from A to B, completing a portion of your charters. At airport B, you find more jobs that terminate at airport C and load your plane to the gills one more time. You land at airport C and pocket the cash from all the remaining jobs. Had you simply loaded up the plane at airport A with a plane full of people destined for airport C, you might have made less money.
How to get started:
- sign up for a forum account (http://fseforums.com)
- request an FSE account by posting in the Account Requests forum.
- once you receive your account activation email (usually within a few hours), sign in to the FSE site (http://www.fseconomy.com)
- read the 'Getting started' tutorial in the FSE forum
- at some point, you really SHOULD read the actual manual, too, it contains little important tidbits to help you get the most from this virtual world.