Assignments
Assignments - sometimes also called "Jobs" - are the heart of FSEconomy... this is what FSE was designed for. Although there are other ways to earn money in FSE, such as interacting with other players, flying assignments is the only guaranteed way to make money.
Assignment Basics
FSE Assignments are not what you would expect to see in a "real world" situation, nor are they designed to simulate any sort of "scheduled airline" experience. Instead, FSE is designed to be more like a "charter" experience, but instead of customers coming to your charter company location, you go around looking for customers (sort of like a taxi cab driver in a city).
You are free to pick up as many assignments as you like (up to a maximum of 60), even if they are not all going to the same place. But keep in mind that each aircraft only has a certain number of seats as well as maximum Payload Capacity.
Passengers and Cargo
All assignment categories can be composed of only two types of assignments: Passengers and Cargo. You can mix and match passengers and cargo on the same flight (with some exceptions), but you cannot exceed the number of seats in your plane, and you cannot exceed the total Cargo Capacity. The combined weight of the required crew members, the fuel, all passengers, and cargo cannot exceed the MTOW of the aircraft, or else all or some of the assignments won't get on board. Additionally, some aircraft have restricted cargo weight capacities, regardless of the aircraft's MTOW.
Passengers - Much like the taxi cab metaphor, they are trying to "flag you down" to ask for a ride. They show up at the airport with a sign saying, "I want to go to XYZ airport and I'm willing to pay THIS amount of money". They just stand there, waiting for someone (the FSE Pilots) to come along and give them a ride. Sometimes these passengers are by themselves, sometimes they are in groups of 2 or 3, and sometimes they are in larger groups of 10, 20, or even 60 or 70. Passenger groups cannot be split up into smaller groups. Any aircraft being used to carry passengers must have enough seats for each passenger, the pilot, the co-pilot (if required) AND enough remaining Payload Capacity weight to onboard those passengers.
ALL "people" in FSE weigh exactly 77kg (about 170 pounds). This includes you (the pilot), any additional required crew members, and the weight of each passenger. Passengers do not carry baggage, so they do not add additional cargo weight beyond their 77kg "person weight".
Cargo - Cargo Assignments can use the same taxi cab metaphor. A customer shows up at the airport with a box labeled "fly me to XYZ airport and I will pay you THIS amount", and then leaves it there waiting for someone (the FSE Pilots) to come along and take it. Each cargo pallet, or box, has a specific weight associated with it, and the aircraft being used must have enough remaining Payload Capacity to carry that much weight. FSE does not simulate pallet sizes nor aircraft loading doors or floor capacity - the only cargo limitation is the Maximum Cargo Payload Weight limitation of the aircraft.
Assignment Categories
System Assignments
A system assignment simply means that "the system" decided the parameters of the assignment: the name of the assignment; how many passengers or how much cargo weight; where the customer is going; how much they are willing to pay; and, the expiration time limit.
There are dozens and dozens of different system "assignment templates" that determine all of these parameters. The assignment templates are manually edited by FSE staff members and are frequently adjusted or deleted and new ones are created. This results in a constantly changing world - some days there may be 1 passenger going 100 miles between dirt airstrips, and the next day there may be 10 passengers going 500 miles to the next regional metropolis.
System Assignments come in four main types: Trip, VIP, All-In, and All-In Direct.
Trip Assignment Type
Trip type assignments are the most common. These assignments are indicated by the letter "T" in the Type column of the Assignment List on all Airport Pages.
Trip assignments can be flown by any player using any compatible aircraft. Multiple Trip assignments can be taken on every flight leg, combining them with other Trip assignments from any starting location. Trip assignments can be taken on as many flight leg hops as needed before reaching its final destination. (see multi-hop, multi-assignment section below for more details)
VIP Assignment Type
VIP ("Very Important Person") type assignments are indicated by the letter "V" in the Type column of the Assignment List on all Airport Pages.
VIP assignments will charter the aircraft for exclusive use. VIP Assignments are not concerned with aircraft type, so you may use any available aircraft. VIP assignments can be taken on as many flight leg hops as needed before reaching its final destination.
NOTE: When selecting a VIP assignment, no other assignments may be in your My Flight queue (to include the holding area).
All-In Assignment Type
All-In type assignments are indicated by the letter "A" in the Type column of the Assignment List on all Airport Pages, as well as the specific Aircraft Tail# that must be used.
All-in assignments are ones in which the paying customers have booked a specific aircraft, have agreed to cover all fees (except the ground crew fee), and just need a pilot to fly them. When you fly an all-in flight, you may not take any other assignments along with you, and you may not use any other aircraft. All-In assignments can be taken on as many flight leg hops as needed before reaching the final destination.
One popular advantage to All-In flights is no requirement for calculating operating and fuel expenses. You get paid exactly what is shown on the screen, minus any ground crew fees of either 0%, 5%, or 10% if applicable.
NOTE: When selecting an All-In assignment, no other assignments may be in your My Flight queue (to include the holding area).
All-In Direct Assignment Type
All-In Direct type assignments are indicated by the letter "A" with an arrow in the Type column of the Assignment List on all Airport Pages, as well as the specific Aircraft Tail# that must be used.
All-In Direct assignments are exactly the same as All-In assignments, except that All-In Direct assignments may not land at any other airport other than the listed destination. These assignments MUST go "direct" on a non-stop flight.
NOTE: When selecting a All-In Direct assignments, no other assignments may be in your My Flight queue (to include the holding area).
Booking All-In Aircraft. All-In reserved aircraft do not have the normal "rent" link. When you select the All-In assignment, the aircraft is automatically "rented" in your name.
If you have other assignments already in your My Flight assignment queue, you will be prevented from claiming an All-In flight until you cancel those assignments.
Passenger Terminal Assignments
Passenger Terminal assignment are nearly the same thing as a System Passenger assignment, except that the parameters of the passenger groups were decided by other FSE players who operate FBOs with attached Passenger Terminals.
The biggest difference between Passenger Terminal Assignments and System Assignments is that Passenger Terminal assignments do not get a 21-day extension when moved to a different airport.
Passenger Terminal assignments can be identified by their green font in the Cargo column in the assignment list.
Note: Sometimes, the FSE FBO operators like to pretend that they are generating cargo assignments, and so they will label their assignments to make it look like a cargo job: "box of apples", for example. Regardless of the name, these assignments are passengers and so they will weigh 77kg and occupy one passenger seat each. So, "4 boxes of apples" is actually 4 people, and therefore you cannot take them in a 3-passenger aircraft, such as a Cessna 172.
Commodity Assignments
Commodity Assignments are created by other FSE players to move their commodities from one airport to another. These assignments are always cargo loads, in pallet sizes specified by the owner. The owner may also choose to assign a payment value to each assignment, or may leave the pay value at $0. This is common if the owner plans to fly the cargo himself or wants to negotiate a specific deal with other player(s). If you take a Commodity Assignment to its destination, you will be paid the face value listed in the Pay column. If the Pay value is set to $0, you can still take the assignment; but, you will not be paid unless you have made other arrangements to be paid by other means.
Commodity Assignments are identified by their name, in one of the four following types:
100LL Fuel
JetA Fuel
Supplies
Building Materials
Commodity assignments never expire.
Group Assignments
The final category of assignment is a Group Assignment. These are zero-weight assignments created by groups for the purpose of paying someone to fly a plane. Normally, these assignments are only available to group members, but occasionally they'll be left out in public. When that happens, the assignments are automatically converted to $0 value, and are labeled simply as "[Group Assignment]".
There is no value to these assignments and can generally be ignored.
Assignment Expire Time Limits
In all cases, System Assignments start off with a short 1-5 day expiration. Passenger Terminal assignments may have a variety of expire times, based on the FBO Operator's preferences. Commodity Assignments and Group Assignments do not expire and will only be removed from the system upon delivery to the listed destination airport. The FSE System will delete any expired assignments about every 30 minutes. However, if you are able to get an assignment airborne before the clock reaches zero, the assignment will not be deleted and you can still get paid for delivering it. However, if you land somewhere other than the destination, the assignment will be back "on the ground" and is eligible to be deleted right away.
24 Hour Extension
All Trip Assignment types and PT Assignment types get an automatic 24-hour extension as soon as you claim the assignment for yourself or for a group. If you release the assignment back out to the public airport, the 24 hour extension is no longer applied. If the assignment has passed its original expire time and entered into the 24 hour grace period, the system will delete the assignment within a few minutes. While the assignment is in your My Flight queue, you can tell if the assignment is now in its grace period by the asterisk next to the time remaining. In this example, the original expire time was 23 hours ago, and the assignment was 1 actual hour left until it is deleted by the system.
21 Day Extension
In most cases, System Assignment category assignments types will extend their expiration an extra 21 days if they are picked up and taken somewhere else before final delivery. This gives FSE players the ability to play the game on an extended timeline, because we all have real world commitments. These assignments maintain their extension, even if you release the job back to the public after moving it; however, if the assignment ever lands back at its origin airport, the 21 day extension is voided and the assignment will be deleted from the game within a few minutes, even if you still have it in your loading area.
Passenger Terminal Assignments are not eligible for the 21 Day Extension
You can tell when an assignment is not at its origin airport (and therefore has been granted an extension) by the clock icon next to the expiration time.
Express Assignments
Express Assignments are special System Assignments that do not get the 21 Day Extension. They are, however, still eligible for the 24 Hour Extension. These assignments are much less frequent than normal System Assignments and are considered "urgent".
Express assignments are indicated by the red lightning bolt icon.
Never Expires
Commodity Assignments and Group Assignments never expire. Commodity Assignments will sit an airport until they are either delivered to the indicated destination or until the owner removes them from the airport by re-adding them to his commodities stockpile. Group Assignments that have been left out in public are actually "orphaned" jobs and can either be picked up by anyone or any other group and re-used, or simply ignored.
Additional Assignment Information
Assignment Pay
All System Assignments and PT Assignments in FSE will pay you something. Unlike the real world, you do not get to dictate the fares. Rather, in FSE, the passengers that are standing at the airport with a sign telling you where they want to go, also tell you the amount of money they are willing to pay to get there. You don't get to collect the money ahead of time -- all customers pay you immediately upon landing at their destination.
Commodity Assignments and Group Assignments may or may not have pay values attached to them. If they do, then you will get paid immediately upon landing. If they do not have a pay value, then you will want to work out an agreement with the owner ahead of time.
Assignment Fees
In addition to the pay you receive upon each landing for assignments getting off at that airport, you might also be assessed certain fees for each assignment. There are two main fees you might possibly pay:
Ground Crew Fee
Each originating airport and destination airport will charge a 5% Ground Crew Fee (if an operational FBO is located on the airport). If there is no FBO at one end or the other, there is no Ground Crew Fee for that airport. These fees are applied when the assignment reaches its final destination, and does not apply for any layover stops enroute.
For airports with multiple FBOs on the field, the 5% Ground Crew Fee will be evenly split amongst each FBO - not 5% to every FBO. You will be billed by the FSE system for each fee payment, which might result in up to six Ground Crew Fee payments per assignment.
Note: For Passenger Terminal Assignments, the FBO that spawned that assignment will not need to share the fee with other FBOs on that field.
Booking Fee
Booking fees are specific to Passenger Terminal Assignments only and do not affect any other assignment type. For every Passenger Terminal assignment in excess of 5 assignments (total assignment count, not total passenger count) that you load onto your aircraft, you will be assessed a 1%-per-assignment Booking Fee. This fee will come out of the pay for that specific assignment. This fee is in addition to Ground Crew Fees.
1-5 green jobs loaded --- no booking fee
6 green jobs --- 6% booking fee for each assignment
7 green jobs --- 7% booking fee for each assignment
and so forth
Example: If your flight has one 3-pax assignment and four 2-pax assignments, you would have 11 passengers but only 5 assignments, so no Booking Fees would be charged.
Booking fees also "stick" to a Passenger Terminal assignment once they are moved from their originating airport.
Example: If you have seven Passenger Terminal assignments on board, all seven of them will be assessed a 7% booking fee, no matter where they are destined for. If you land at Airport A, and three assignments are delivered, you will pay the 7% fee for each of those three assignments. If you then continue on to Airport B and deliver two more, you will pay the 7% fee for each of those two assignments also, even though you now only had four assignments on board. Now that you only have the final two PT assignments on board, they will still be assessed a 7% fee upon reaching their destination.
Persistent Fees. Booking fees also cause other Passenger Terminal jobs that get onboard later to assume the same fee value. Continuing the above scenario, where you have two remaining Passenger Terminal assignments with 7% booking fees attached to them: if you stop and pick up one more Passenger Terminal assignment (for a grand total of three assignments on board), the new addition to your manifest will also be charged a 7% fee upon delivery.
Even if you cancel the assignments back to the public, they will maintain their booking fees. If someone releases a Passenger Terminal assignment with a 25% booking fee attached to it, and you pick up that one and only assignment, you will be charged a 25% fee upon delivery. This prevents people from getting around the booking fees by stopping just short of their destination, unloading all jobs, re-loading five jobs at a time and making multiple no-fee deliveries.
Note: Persistent Booking Fees are NOT listed. You have no way of knowing if a Passenger Terminal assignment that you have taken onboard has a persistent Booking Fee attached to it from a previous flight. If you see a different "Location" and "From" airport identifier in your assignment manifest list, you know that the assignment has been moved from its original departure airport ("From"), and may possibly have an unknown fee amount. You may wish to leave this behind if you do not want to risk a high fee.
Finding Assignments
Specific Airport
Assignments in FSE are found on the Airport Page. At the top of the Game World menu, simply click on "Airports". The first time you access the Airports Page for each logon session, you will only see a search box (shown to the right). You can search for a specific airport if you know the Airport Identifier Code or the city name. Alternatively, you can search for an airport that has a specific type of aircraft that you want to fly. Once you get to a specific airport, this search box will always be at the bottom of the page. From now on during the current logon session, every time you click on the "Airports" link on the menu, you will be returned to the last airport you visited.
For the example screenshot here, we searched for the ICAO, "MPRH", in Rio Hato, Panama. You can find assignments by going to nearly any airport in the world. All assignments located at this airport are listed in the Assignments Section of the airport page.
At MPRH, we can see that there are ten assignments of various sizes, for various pay, going various distances. Nine of these assignments are Passengers - some with just a single passenger, a few groups of 4 or 5 passengers, and three larger groups of 38, 44, and 60 passengers per group. There is also a single cargo job with 176kg of newspapers and mail.
Assignment Filtering - Geographical
On each Airport Page, there are several ways to filter the assignments based on where they are at and where they are going. These filters are labeled "From" and "To", and "Airport" and "Area". These filters can be combined to create four different views of assignments, as related to the airport. This is helpful for planning flights where you can carry multiple customers.
"From" "Airport" -- Assignments located at this airport, going somewhere else. (this is the default filter)
"From" "Area" -- Assignments located at this airport and other airports nearby, going somewhere else.
"To" "Airport" -- Assignments located somewhere else, coming into this airport.
"To" "Area" -- Assignments located somewhere else, coming into the nearby region.
You can apply these filters in two different ways:
At the top of the Assignment Section. In the default view, the word "From" is a link, and the "Airport Name" is also a link. Clicking "From" will change it to "To", and clicking the "Airport" will change it to "Area".
At the bottom of the Assignment Section are a pair of drop down boxes. Apply your filter settings and click "Go".
Assignment Filtering - Aircraft Capacity
You can also filter the assignments by your aircraft's capacity. If you are flying a Cessna 172, you will not want to see passenger assignments with more than 3 people in the group, because you only have 3 available seats in your plane. You can also only carry about 300kg with just 1/4 tank of gas, so you might want to also filter out the heavier cargo assignments. This example is shown in the screenshot below.
The capacity filtering is done at the bottom of the Assignment Section by using the drop down boxes to set the following parameters:
Passengers:
At Least (a certain number)
At Most (A certain number)
Cargo:
At Least (a certain weight)
At Most (a certain weight)
Display Only Capable Aircraft
Assignments with very large numbers of passengers, or very heavy cargo, require a much larger aircraft. If you need to rent a larger aircraft, you can filter out all of the smaller aircraft for less clutter. Clicking on the "Aircraft" link in the far-right column of the assignment list will change the Aircraft section (below the assignment section) to only show aircraft capable of handling that assignment.
Note: aircraft will be displayed that are in the near-by area as well as the airport for the airport page you are on.
Descriptions of the Assignment Section Columns
Notice that there are eleven (11) columns in the assignment section. These columns can be sorted individually, by clicking on the column header, or they can be sorted by multiple columns by holding down the shift key while clicking on the column headers. Below is a description of each column:
Add - is a checkbox that allows you to select that assignment.
Pay - the gross amount that the assignment pays upon delivery before expenses are deducted.
From - the airport at which the assignment is currently located (not necessarily it's origin).
Dest - the airport to which the assignment is to ultimately be delivered ("Destination":)
NM - the distance to the destination.
Bearing - the direction to destination.
Cargo - a description of the freight or passengers in this assignment.
Type - Three types are: "T" (Trip), "A" (All-In), or "V" (VIP). (each are described in greater above)
Aircraft - For "Trip"- and "VIP"-type assignments, the aircraft is "Not Provided" (you must supply the aircraft). "All in"-type assignments will dictate which specific aircraft you must use, and the aircraft's Registration will be listed here
Expires - time remaining before this assignment disappears from the Airport Page.
Action - clicking on “Aircraft” will display a list of planes in the nearby area capable of accommodating this assignment.
Selecting Assignments
Now that you've found a list of one or more assignments by going to an airport and applying both Geographical Filtering as well as Aircraft Capacity Filtering, you simply need to pick and choose one or more assignments from that list. They do not all need to be going to the same destination. You select your assignments by clicking the "check box" in the first column. You can select multiple assignments at a time by clicking multiple checkboxes. Once all of the assignments you want have been checked, scroll to the bottom of the Assignment Section and click on the button labeled "Add Selected Assignments To -->". By default, this will add the assignments to your "My Flight" page. If you are a member of a flying group, you can add these assignments to that group instead by selecting the name of the group from the drop down list, instead of leaving it as the default "My Flight".
Flying the Assignments
In its simplest form, you’ll find a suitable airplane for rent at the same airport as your assignment. Rent the plane, refuel if necessary, click the Start Flight option from the Client’s Action menu to load the assignment, and fly to the destination.
You might have found an aircraft at a different airport than the assignment. That's ok - you do not need to have an assignment to rent and fly an aircraft. You simply start your flight at the nearby airport, fly to the airport where the assignment is, shut down and re-start the flight (using the FSE client) and continue from there. When you depart the first airport, you will notice that no assignments are displayed in the FSE client; you’ll be “dead-heading” (flying empty) on the first leg until you pick up your assignment(s).
Multi-hop, multi-assignment trips
Multi-hop trips can be a profitable method of maximizing available seats or cargo room on an aircraft. It is a common practice in real world commercial aviation and although it takes a bit of extra planning in FSE, it’s worth the effort.
Example: let’s say you rented a ten-seat Beechcraft 18 (one seat is for the pilot) at airport 'A' and you found a five-passenger assignment going from Airport 'A' to airport 'C'. You could certainly do this; but, upon further investigation you notice that there is a four-passenger assignment at another airport, Airport 'B', also wanting to go to airport 'C'. And lucky you, airport ‘B’ is in the same direction as you will be traveling. Since you are flying to 'C' anyway and 'B' is not too far out of the way, you may as well stop and add those passengers, too. You have room on-board, and the additional expenses for fuel and rental will be minimal.
To make this work, perform the following sequence:
Start the flight (in the FSE Client) as usual at airport 'A'
Fly to airport 'B'
"End Flight" in the FSE Client so that FSE logs your flight from A --> B
Start the flight (in the FSE Client) as usual at airport 'B' (you will now have both assignments on-board)
Fly to Airport 'C'
"End Flight" in the FSE Client so that FSE logs your flight from B --> C
Note: Your expenses for the flight from 'A' to 'B' will show a negative balance since you have not yet completed an assignment for pay (but you did use fuel and rented an aircraft for that distance) but don’t worry, it will all work out in the end when you land at 'C' and get paid for both assignments.
Sometimes you need to land at an airport just to refuel. Fuel stops work just like the example above for airport 'B': land, end the flight, use the “Refuel” button on the My Flight page to add fuel (do NOT park near a Flight Simulator fuel station which auto-fills your aircraft in some simulators), then click Start Flight and proceed to your next stop.
Multi-hops can span as many airports as desired. In the example above, you may discover that the assignment at airport ‘B’ is to transport cargo to airport ‘D’, not far from airport ‘C’. Again, fly, land and shutdown at ‘C’ and then restart the FSE client for the final leg to ‘D’. Flying all day from airport to airport, picking up and delivering as many assignments as will fit at airports along the way, is the most efficient way to make money in FSE.