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vACA Hero Light vACA Hero Dark Your landing is scored on the G-force recorded at touchdown, not on vertical speed in feet per minute. Pegasus ACARS samples G-force at 40 Hz throughout the landing, so the value that reaches the scorer reflects the load your airframe actually took.

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Landing Rate Scoring

Each landing falls into one of seven bands. The points below are applied to your flight score. Both range bounds are inclusive. Two bands are graduated, meaning the penalty grows the further you drift from the band’s edge: a Hard landing gets progressively worse as it gets heavier, and a Very Smooth landing gets progressively worse as it gets lighter.

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What to Aim For

Target the Smooth band, 1.20 to 1.39 G. That is the highest-scoring landing you can fly. The scale is penalised at both ends, so chasing the softest possible touchdown is not rewarded:
  • Under 1.20 G you drop into Very Smooth, which scores slightly lower than Smooth.
  • Under 1.10 G you drop into Too Soft, which is a penalty. A landing that gentle usually means you floated the flare and used extra runway.
  • At or above 1.70 G the penalties begin, and they escalate quickly above 2.00 G.
If you routinely land under 1.10 G, you are most likely holding the aircraft off the runway too long. Fly it onto the runway at the aiming point instead.

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Why G-force Instead of FPM

Vertical speed in feet per minute reads a single instant: how fast you were descending the moment the wheels made contact. That is easy to fluke with a last-second flare, and it is noisy enough that two visually identical landings can report very different numbers. G-force measures the load the airframe actually absorbed through the touchdown. It reflects the landing you genuinely flew, it is far harder to game, and at a 40 Hz sample rate it is stable enough to score consistently.

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Excessive Landings

A landing recorded at 2.50 G or more triggers the Excessive Landing Rate failure rule. Your is sent for staff review and your input is required before it can be processed. Note that a heavy landing can also flag your PIREP indirectly. The Very Hard band carries a -150 point penalty, which on its own is often enough to push your total below zero and trigger the separate Negative Points rule. For the full list of failure rules and what each PIREP status means, see PIREP Statuses.
We are still improving this. The bands and point values above are actively being tuned as we collect more landing data across the fleet. Expect the thresholds to shift, and check this page for the current values.

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Flight Scoring System

Learn About Flight Scoring

Understand how flights are tracked and scored in our ACARS system. Learn about performance metrics, validation requirements, and how to maximize your pilot score.

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Need Help?

If you have questions about how your landing was scored, our operations team is available to assist.

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