Real airline pilots send data to dispatch every few seconds via ACARS — Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. Virtual aviation borrows the name and the idea. Whenever your flight log shows precise climbs, accurate fuel burn, exact takeoff and landing times — that's ACARS at work. Without it, a virtual airline could only trust what you typed in by hand.
What ACARS actually records
An ACARS client sits between your simulator and the virtual airline. It reads the sim's live data — position, altitude, ground speed, heading, vertical speed, fuel, weight, engine status — and forwards it to the airline at a regular interval. From those messages, the airline builds a precise reconstruction of your flight:
- Departure time, takeoff roll, lift-off speed.
- Climb profile and time to top-of-climb.
- Cruise altitude, mach number, fuel flow.
- Descent profile and approach speed.
- Touchdown rate (the all-important landing fpm).
- Taxi time, parking, total block time.
Everything that ends up on your PIREP detail page comes from ACARS data, not from a text box you filled in.
Why it matters for your score
Manual PIREPs ("I landed at 220 fpm") are not trustworthy enough for a competitive airline. ACARS removes the trust question — the data is the flight. Your landing rate, smoothness, and flight time are all measured, not claimed.
This is mostly good news. You no longer need to remember or estimate anything. Even better, the airline can detect cheating attempts (a 1 fpm landing at Mach 0.85, for example) and reject implausible reports automatically. Honest pilots benefit because the leaderboard becomes meaningful.
The popular ACARS clients
There are several, and they all do the same fundamental job — read your sim, talk to your airline. The differences come in extras (overlay views, fuel planning, livery selection, sound effects). Pick whichever one your airline officially supports. If you fly with us, the JSV Flight Logger handles everything end-to-end without you opening anything else, and it works across MSFS 2020, MSFS 2024, X-Plane 11/12, and Prepar3D.
Setting it up the first time
- Install the client on the same machine as your simulator, or on a networked PC that can see SimConnect/XPUIPC.
- Enter your airline credentials. Usually just an API key from your pilot profile.
- Configure the route. Most clients let you pick a booked flight directly from a dropdown — no manual entry needed.
- Start the flight in the sim, hit "Begin" in the client, and walk through your checklists as normal.
- Land, taxi, shut down. The client detects engines-off and submits the PIREP automatically.
Fifteen minutes, including download time. After that, every flight is logged automatically.
Common first-flight mistakes
- Starting ACARS too late. Begin it before pushback. Otherwise the client may miss your taxi and out-time.
- Forgetting to pick the booked flight. Free-form flights still log, but they won't link to a schedule and won't count toward route-specific bonuses.
- Pausing the sim during cruise. Most clients handle short pauses, but a 30-minute pause for dinner can confuse the time-tracking. Use the client's "pause" feature instead of the sim's.
- Crashing the sim mid-flight. Modern clients save state and resume cleanly. Older ones lose the flight. If your sim crashes regularly, set the client to autosave every 60 seconds.
What ACARS does not do
It doesn't fly the aircraft for you. It doesn't check your flight plan for legality. It doesn't replace a SimBrief dispatch. It's purely a measurement and reporting tool. Treat it as a passive observer — once it's running, ignore it and concentrate on the flight.
Interpreting your PIREP
After landing, your ACARS submits a PIREP. The airline scores it on a handful of factors:
- Landing rate (touchdown fpm). Smaller is better, but unnaturally low values may flag a "greaser" if combined with high speed.
- Smoothness through cruise (no sudden pitch/roll inputs).
- Time on schedule vs published block time.
- Fuel discipline — landing with reasonable reserves, not bone-dry or with hours left.
- Compliance with SID/STAR/approach if your airline tracks that.
Don't obsess over the score on flight one. Aim to finish the flight. The score improves naturally as your hands settle.
A word on long flights
For a 10-hour transatlantic, your ACARS will be running unattended for most of the flight. Make sure your PC's sleep settings won't kick in mid-cruise, your sim's autosave is enabled (in case of a CTD), and the ACARS client itself is set to "run in background". Many pilots also enable VATSIM-aware monitoring so the ACARS pauses cleanly if you disconnect.
Why it's worth the setup time
Once configured, ACARS becomes invisible. You never think about it. But the data it produces is the foundation of everything visible about your VA career — your ranks, your hours, your destinations map, your average landing rate, your stats page. Skipping ACARS is like flying a real airline route without a Black Box. The flight happened, but nobody can prove it, and you can't learn from it.
