Flight Phases
JetCard automatically tracks your flight through a state machine that detects phase transitions from sim data. You don’t need to manually advance phases — just fly.
Phase Sequence
| Phase | Trigger | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BOARDING | Charter accepted | Starting phase. Passengers are loading |
| TAXI OUT | Ground speed > 6 kts sustained for 3 consecutive ticks (~6 seconds) | Sustained gate filters single-tick spikes during high-fidelity aircraft load-in |
| TAKEOFF | Ground speed > 40 kts sustained for 3 consecutive ticks (~6 seconds) | Same sustained logic — rejects bounce/glitch readings |
| CLIMB | Wheels off ground (onGround = false) | Hard gate — sets airborne timestamp |
| CRUISE | Within ±1,000 ft of cruise altitude box | Informational only |
| DESCENT | > 1,000 ft below cruise AND sustained VS < -1,000 fpm for 60s AND within 250 nm of arrival | Informational only — all three conditions must hold |
| APPROACH | Descent conditions + altitude below 10,000 ft | Informational only |
| FINAL APPROACH | Within 15 nm of arrival | Triggers high-rate (250 ms) sim polling so the landing-rate capture lands on the right tick |
| TAXI IN | Wheels on ground after airborne | Hard gate — unlocks the Complete Flight button |
| BLOCK IN | Both engines below 15% N1 | Optional — some aircraft don’t report clean shutdown |
Hard Gates vs Optional Phases
Three phases are hard gates that affect flight mechanics:
- CLIMB (wheels off) — records your airborne time
- TAXI IN (wheels on after airborne) — unlocks the Complete Flight button
- BLOCK IN (engines at idle) — sets deboarding status
CRUISE, DESCENT, APPROACH, and FINAL APPROACH are informational — they appear in the EFB and ACARS log but never block completion. They also drive sim-polling cadence: cruise is polled every 2 seconds, approach every 500 ms, final approach every 250 ms.
Completing a Flight
Once you reach TAXI IN, the Complete Flight button becomes available. You don’t need to wait for BLOCK IN — taxi in is sufficient. This handles aircraft that don’t report clean engine shutdown data.
Elapsed Time Guard
JetCard checks your actual block time against the estimated flight time and pro-rates the payout if you finish meaningfully faster than expected (anti-time-acceleration, anti-cheat):
| Time vs estimate | Payout |
|---|---|
| 90% or more | Full charter value |
| Below 90% | Pro-rated: payout = full value × (actual hours / estimated hours) |
A 70%-of-expected-time flight earns 70% of the value. A 50%-of-expected-time flight earns 50%. The pro-rate is linear all the way down.
Diversion legs are additionally halved after the time-guard — both the original (diverted) leg and the recovery leg pay 50% of whatever the pro-rate said they were worth.
Abandoning a Flight
You can abandon a charter at any point:
- Pre-departure (before airborne) — -1.5 reputation penalty
- In-flight (after airborne) — -3.0 reputation penalty
Abandoned charters return to the board for other pilots to pick up. Your aircraft is released back to available status.
Landing Rate
JetCard captures your touchdown vertical speed for the after-action report. This data is stored in the charter’s completion record and visible on the Logbook detail page.