What is Pilops

Pilops is a multiplayer career add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024. You fly real cargo and passenger jobs in the simulator, earn in-game money, grow a fleet and, if you want, build a virtual airline with other pilots. Everything happens in one shared world: the same airports, the same jobs and the same economy for every pilot, all the time.

It is free to start. You get an aircraft and a hangar when you sign up, and the simulator add-on is a small desktop app that runs next to the simulator. See Your first flight to get going.

How it works

A Pilops career is a loop of flights:

Plan a flight on the Pilops website: pick one of your aircraft, choose the cargo and passengers waiting at your airport, add fuel.
Fly it in Microsoft Flight Simulator with the Pilops Client open. The client tracks the flight from the gate to the gate, including your landing.
Get paid in Pilops Coins (P$) and experience (XP) when you park at the destination.
Grow: buy or rent bigger aircraft, open hangars at new airports, rent stands and create routes that generate jobs for you, or join a company and fly for it.

The website is where you manage everything: fleet, hangars, airports, bank, company and profile. The simulator is where you fly. The client is the bridge between the two.

What makes it different

A world shared with every other pilot: The Dashboard shows every flight in progress right now, on a live map. Jobs are shared too: if another pilot books the cargo you had your eye on, it is gone.

An economy that keeps moving while you are offline: Demand at each airport depends on its size and on what everybody is flying. Prices and availability change with the community, not with a script.

Your landings count: Every touchdown is scored from the simulator's own data: G-force, pitch, bank and vertical speed. Hard landings cost you; smooth ones become part of your record. See Landing score.

Companies built by players: Virtual airlines with their own fleet, hangars, hubs and operating area. They start regional and grow to national and international reach as their pilots fly. See Companies.

What you can do

Fly jobs at more than 10,000 real airports. See Flying.
Build a fleet across four categories, from piston singles to airliners, and keep it maintained. See Fleet.
Own infrastructure: hangars at the airports you fly from, stands you rent at real airports, and routes between them that generate cargo and passengers for you to fly. See Airports.
Manage money in two currencies, Pilops Coins earned by flying and Pilop Points bought with real money. See Economy.
Level up and compete on the global ranking by experience. See Levels and XP and Rankings.
Fly with others in a company, as a member or as its founder. See Companies.
Show your career on a public profile with your fleet, logbook and statistics. See Profile.

Who plays it

Pilots come to Pilops for different reasons, and the game supports all three:

The GA pilot likes short regional hops, bush strips and small aircraft, and builds a small operation with care.
The airline builder wants scale: bigger aircraft, more hubs, more pilots flying under the same ICAO code.
The economy strategist watches demand, spots the gaps and positions stands and routes before anyone else.

What it costs

Nothing to start. Creating an account, the free aircraft, the free hangar and the client cost nothing, and you can play indefinitely without paying.

The optional purchase is Pilop Points (Pp$), a second currency used to rent aircraft, buy hangars, boost routes and speed up maintenance. They let you grow faster and pay for a few extras; the core of the game is reachable with Coins alone. See Pilop Points.

What you need

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 or 2024 on PC. Consoles are not supported.
Windows, because the Pilops Client uses SimConnect to talk to the simulator.
An internet connection while you fly, so the client can send the flight to Pilops.
An aircraft in the simulator that matches the type you chose in Pilops. The client matches by the name the simulator reports, and each type has a list of accepted names: default aircraft work, and third-party add-ons work when their name is on the list.

The client is light and does not affect simulator performance. See Installing the Pilops Client.

Where to go next

Creating your account, then Onboarding to pick your base airport.
Your first flight for the whole loop, step by step.
FAQ and Glossary when a term or a rule is not clear.
Discord to meet the other pilots.