Chapter 2 of 16

The pilot: XP, ranks, ratings

How a career grows and why some aircraft stay locked

Pilots grow on experience (XP) and on flying: a rank opens only once both are cleared. A rank opens up heavier aircraft, and a rating opens up a whole family. Three steps, and you climb them in that order.

Where XP comes from

XP is awarded for every completed flight: the flight score multiplied by a distance factor. Short hops give little, long legs give the most.

Under 50 nautical miles×0.2

50–150 nm×0.5

150–600 nm×0.8

600–2,500 nm×1.0

Over 2,500 nm×1.2

Below 25 logged hours all XP is doubled — newcomers don't have to spend years catching up with the veterans.

Ranks

Cadet0 XP

First Officer500 XP + 3 flights or 5 h

Captain1,750 XP + 15 flights or 30 h

Senior Captain4,300 XP + 40 flights or 90 h

Instructor Pilot8,500 XP + 80 flights or 180 h

Chief Pilot14,500 XP + 140 flights or 300 h

A rank takes both experience and flying — you need the two together. Experience does not come from flights alone: Operations Room situations, tours, the season and community goals all feed the same counter, and the flying minimum is what keeps the rank a flying one. On the flying side either number is enough: the flight count assumes roughly a two-hour leg, the hours are the same step for a long-haul pilot.

Rank decides which weight class you are trusted with: light and medium from Cadet, heavy (Boeing 767 and 777, Il-96 and the like) from Captain, super heavy (A380, An-225) from Instructor Pilot.

Ratings: families and classes

Rank alone is not enough: you also need a rating. It is granted for a family, not for a single variant — a “Boeing 737” rating covers the -700, the -800 and the MAX, and “Airbus A320” covers everything from the A318 to the A321neo. Light aircraft up to 5,700 kg fly on a class rating: one for all single-engine pistons, one for the multi-engine ones, and so on. Helicopters have a single class covering every light machine, from the R44 to the H125; heavy ones such as the Mi-8 need a type rating of their own. The starter ratings are free; the rest you pay to train for, in the Career section. A family costs twice as much as a single type, but the second and the tenth aircraft inside it are free.

Light (L)₽100,000

Medium (M)₽200,000

Heavy (H)₽800,000

Super heavy (J)₽2,000,000

Ratings have to be kept current. Ninety days without flying any aircraft in the family and the rating lapses — nothing in it is bookable until you take a recurrency course: roughly a quarter of the training cost, but never less than ₽25,000. A flight on any type inside the rating resets the clock for the whole family. Career warns you two weeks before the deadline.

Pilot money

Salary from the airline — every 30 days, based on your rank. Each airline sets its own scale; the default runs from ₽40,000 a month for a Cadet to ₽450,000 for a Chief Pilot.
Flight bonus — a share of the profit the flight brought the airline, 10% by default. It arrives together with the report.
A one-off bonus from management — the owner or an executive picks the amount and the reason on the Personnel tab. The money lands in your personal account at once, and the notification says what it was for.
Your personal account pays for training, recurrency courses, personal aircraft and their ferry flights.

Quality rating

Besides XP, every pilot carries a rating — the average score of recent flights, starting at 90. Clean flying lifts it, rough flying drags it down. It shows in the rankings, and airline management looks at it when hiring.

Career Rankings Leaderboards

Next · Chapter 3How a flight works