Time, Distance, Fuel
Flight Logging Requirements

If your client attempts to log a flight that is too fast, flew for too long, or burned too little fuel for the published FSE numbers, the Server will attempt to adjust your Flight Time, your Fuel Consumed, or both in order to bring those numbers inline with FSE's expected numbers.  However, the flight may be rejected and you will need to start over from the beginning if there was not enough fuel onboard the aircraft at the beginning.  The FSE server will accept a slight variation to these published numbers in an effort to accommodate unpredictable winds or other environmental factors, as well as the slight variations that exist between the various models and the various simulators.  

NOTE: The onus is on the player to know the FSE Calculated Distance and to make sure their flight time and total reported fuel consumption is within the published FSE parameters in order to ensure a valid flight is logged by the server.

Typically, flying a "normal flight" should not result in time-validation problems for most aircraft. A "normal flight" will involve starting the FSE Client (and thus the flight-time timer) at the very beginning of a simulator session. That is: start the FSE client, perform a normal start up sequence, block-out, taxi, takeoff, SID or pattern departure, climb out, cruise, descent, STAR or pattern arrival, landing, taxi, block-in, and finally shut down which will trigger the end-flight sequence. This extra time on the ground will usually compensate for any tail winds or high-altitude efficiencies you may experience during cruise. But keep in mind that the Fuel Validation is based on Aircraft Flight Time, so if you add a LOT of extra time, or have headwinds enroute, make sure you have the extra fuel onboard to cover it.

On the opposite end of the scale, if you do not add enough time to your overall total flight, and the server adjusts your time upwards to the Minimum Required Time, the server will also attempt to adjust your fuel consumption to match this new time. However, if you planned for the shorter amount of time and only carried enough fuel for this shorter time, you have a higher chance of having the flight cancelled. For example, your 1 hour time and 1 hour fuel (in the simulator) might be adjusted to 2 hours time. If you planned for only 1 hour and took just 1 hour of fuel, the server cannot adjust the fuel and the flight will be cancelled.

Most people experience Flight Time validation issues when attempting to skirt some of these normal flight procedures such as waiting to start the client until right before takeoff and ending the client right after touchdown. Although there is nothing wrong with spawning directly onto the runway in a "ready to go" configuration, this will significantly cut down on "total flight time" and may result in the server rejecting the flight, unless you have enough fuel for the server’s adjusted flight time. Attempting to fly the aircraft further than the published maximum range is possible; however, the risk of flight cancellation becomes greater the further over max-range you go.

Flight Validation Checks

FSE-Calculated Flight Distance

The FSE Server uses "FSE ICAO to FSE ICAO, point-to-point distance" based on the latitude and longitude of the FSE Airports listed in the FSE Airport Database.  The actual distance flown inside the simulator is not relevant to any of these calculations.

The FSE Client will submit the simulator's latitude and longitude coordinates of the "end flight" spot from the simulator's world data.  This does not need to be at an airport; or, it might be at an airport that exists in the simulator but not FSE.   FSE will evaluate the end-flight coordinates and convert those simulator coordinates to the coordinates of the "closest FSE airport".  This will become the FSE Arrival Airport and, combined with the already-known the FSE Departure Airport, the FSE Server will determine the FSE Distance of the flight.  This might very well be hundreds of miles more than, or hundreds of miles less than, what actually occurred inside the simulator.  

Flight Time Validation

The FSE Server will use the aircraft model's published Cruise Speed and the above calculated FSE Distance to determine the Minimum Flight Time that must be reached for this aircraft at this point-to-point distance.  If the client's reported flight time is faster than this Minimum Flight Time (validation failed), the client's reported time will be rejected and the server will use the Minimum Flight Time for logging the flight. 

The cleint's total reported flight time will take into consideration any "pause" function invoked in the simulator as well as any time compression that was used during the flight.   If you pause the sim, the flight time pauses - if you speed up time in the sim, the flight time speeds up as well.   (NOTE: some simulators have an "active pause" feature that only pauses the aircraft into a stationary position, while the time and other systems continue to elapse.)

(Minimum Flight Time = FSE calculated distance / FSE's published cruise speed)

Warning: if the server uses the Minimum Flight Time to log the flight AND this time exceeds FSE's published Maximum Endurance time for this aircraft, the flight will be rejected.

Fuel Consumption Validation

The FSE Server will next determine the expected amount of fuel that should have been consumed, based on the Flight Time that was used in the above validation and the FSE Aircraft’s published GPH. If the amount of fuel that was consumed is determined to be acceptable (within an acceptable tolerance), then the client’s reported fuel burn will be deemed valid and that amount will be logged. However, if the fuel burn is determined to be too low, the FSE Server will use the expected amount of fuel to log the flight instead of the client’s reported fuel.

Warning: if the flight started with less than the whichever fuel total is used, the flight will be rejected with an error message that "there cannot be a negative amount of fuel".

Flight Logging Success/Failure Flow Chart

If all of the above parameters are met, or are able to be adjusted by FSE, the flight will be logged successfully.   However, if any parameter is too far outside of the published specifications (or FSE is unable to adjust the parameter), the flight will be rejected and will need to be started over.  Below is a flow chart that steps through each of the above flight logging validation checks in a visual representation of the above paragrphs.