Shared Cockpit Flights
Fly a leg with a friend in vAMSYS — the Shared Cockpit co-pilot field on dispatch, the friend system behind it, and how Shared Cockpit and Group Flight points are awarded.
Shared cockpit flying in vAMSYS is two separate features that happen to share a name. One is the Shared Cockpit Co-Pilot field on the dispatch form, which names a friend on your booking. The other is the Shared Cockpit scoring rule, which awards points to two friends who fly the same leg at the same moment. Neither depends on the other, but both need you and the other pilot to be accepted friends on vAMSYS.
The Co-Pilot Field Does Not Earn You Points
Naming someone in the Shared Cockpit Co-Pilot dropdown is metadata. It shares your booking with them and names them in your Virtual Airline's Discord notifications, and that is all it does — the scoring rule never reads it. Equally, leaving the field empty does not stop you earning shared cockpit points. The scorer looks at friendships and PIREP timestamps, nothing else.
Become Friends First
Everything on this page depends on an accepted friendship between two vAMSYS accounts. Friendships are account-level rather than airline-level, so you add someone once and the friendship applies wherever you both fly. A request that is still pending, or one that was rejected, does not count. There are two ways to send one:
Open the other pilot's profile in Phoenix and click Add Friend. The button becomes Remove Friend once the request is sent.
Open the Friends page in your vAMSYS Account and use the Invite Friend section, which takes the email address on their vAMSYS account.
Either way, the other pilot has to accept the request from their own Friends page before anything changes. It waits for them under Pending Friend Requests | Received by You, with Accept and Reject buttons. Requests you have sent sit on your own Friends page under Pending Friend Requests | Sent by You, where Cancel Request withdraws one.
Allow Friend Requests Is Checked on the Receiving Account Only
The Allow Friend Requests privacy toggle (Your vAMSYS Account → Global Preferences → Privacy) is only consulted on the account receiving the request. If the pilot you are adding has it switched off, the Add Friend button is not shown on their profile and inviting them by email fails with User Not Found. Your own setting is never checked. The toggle is on by default, so most pilots never need to touch it.
Naming a Co-Pilot When You Dispatch
Dispatch a flight as you normally would, then expand the Network & Co-pilot section of the dispatch form. That section only appears once you have selected an aircraft, and dispatch sections start collapsed, so you have to open it yourself. Inside, Shared Cockpit Co-Pilot sits alongside the Network select. It starts on None with nothing pre-selected, and you can clear it again at any point before you book.
The dropdown lists your accepted friends who also hold a pilot account at the Virtual Airline you are currently flying for. Each option is labelled with their pilot username first, then their public name. Friends without a pilot account at that VA are left out entirely, which is far and away the most common reason someone is missing from the list. The same person can therefore be selectable at one of your VAs and absent at another.
A Missing Co-Pilot? link next to the field label opens a short reminder of the same thing, with a link straight to your Friends page.
The list of options is built when the dispatch form loads, and rebuilt whenever you change aircraft. If you add a friend in another tab while a dispatch form is already open, reload the page before expecting them to appear.
With no co-pilot chosen, both the collapsed section header and the dispatch summary card read Solo.
What Naming a Co-Pilot Actually Does
It shares the booking page. The pilot you name can open your booking page by going to its URL directly. The booking never shows up in their own booking list, so you have to send them the link.
It names them in Discord. If your VA has Discord takeoff and landing notifications configured with a server and a channel, the embed for your flight gains an extra Shared Cockpit line carrying your co-pilot's public name and pilot username. Without a co-pilot, the embed is the standard one.
Nothing else. No booking is created for them, no PIREP is created, no points change hands, and no notification, email, or in-app alert is sent to tell them you named them. Tell them yourself.
Earning Shared Cockpit Points
Shared Cockpit points come from a scoring rule your VA staff have to switch on deliberately. Scoring rules live in scoring groups, and scoring groups are attached to fleets, so the rule can be active for one fleet and absent from another inside the same VA. If the fleet you are flying has no scoring group, or its group does not include the rule, nothing is awarded no matter how well you fly together.
How the Match Is Made
When your PIREP is scored, vAMSYS looks for another PIREP that meets every one of these conditions:
It belongs to one of your accepted friends.
They flew it as a pilot at the same Virtual Airline as your flight.
It has the same departure airport and the same arrival airport as yours. You do not need to have booked the same route entry, and the aircraft do not need to match.
Their takeoff is within 5 seconds of yours, in either direction.
Their touchdown is within 5 seconds of yours, in either direction.
Both time conditions have to pass, not just one. You each dispatch your own flight and file your own PIREP — a single PIREP with a co-pilot named on it is not a shared cockpit flight as far as scoring is concerned, because there is no second PIREP to match against. The online network is not compared either, so the two of you can be on different networks, or offline, and still score.
The Five Seconds Is Measured at the Wheels
Both timestamps come from ACARS events — the instant you lift off and the instant you touch down — not from your scheduled or booked times. Two pilots hand-flying the same route separately will effectively never land inside a 5-second window on both ends. Shared Cockpit is built for a genuinely linked session where both simulators report the same instants. If you just want points for flying together, ask your staff about Group Flight instead.
When the Points Land
The award is written to both PIREPs. If your friend filed first and their PIREP has already been scored, it is updated after the fact — the points are added to their total, a score line is appended, and their pilot statistics are recounted. Filing order makes no difference, because the award happens when the second PIREP is scored. Do not be surprised to see points appear on an older PIREP.
The award is once per PIREP. Flying the same leg with three friends still earns one Shared Cockpit award, not three. Depending on how your staff configured the rule, the points arrive either as a normal score line or as bonus points.
Group Flight
Group Flight is the same rule with a far wider time window: one hour either side on takeoff, and one hour either side on touchdown. Everything else is identical. The other pilot still has to be an accepted friend, still has to be a pilot at the same VA, still has to fly the same airport pair, and still has to file their own PIREP. It is not a fly-with-anyone rule.
Group Flight always awards normal points. Unlike Shared Cockpit, it never applies its points as bonus points.
Checking Whether Your VA Awards These Points
In Phoenix, go to Documents → Scores in the sidebar. The Scoring Rules card lists every scoring group your VA uses and the rules enabled in each one, grouped by category, with the points each rule is worth. If neither social rule is listed for the group covering the fleet you fly, there are no points to earn on it — the co-pilot field still works, it just does not pay.
Enabling the Rules (Staff)
You need the Can Manage Score and Preset Settings permission to reach the scoring group screens.
In Orwell, go to HQ → Rewards → Scoring Groups.
Open the scoring group attached to the fleet the rule should apply to.
In the scoring rules table, click New Scoring Rule and pick the rule from the Scoring Rule select, which is grouped by category.
Set Name, an optional UI Name for what pilots see, and Points.
For Shared Cockpit, use the Apply Points as Bonus Points toggle if you would rather the award landed as a bonus line than a regular score line. Group Flight ignores this setting.
Because scoring groups attach to fleets, repeat this for every scoring group that should award the rule. Adding it to one group does not enable it across the whole VA.
The Two Questions Pilots Ask Most
My friend is not in the co-pilot dropdown. They are not an accepted friend yet, or they do not have a pilot account at this Virtual Airline. We flew together and got no points. Either your VA has not added the rule to the scoring group for that fleet, or your takeoff and touchdown times were not both inside the window.
Related
How to Book a Flight — the dispatch process the co-pilot field sits inside
How to Update Your Settings — where the Allow Friend Requests privacy toggle lives
Scoring Rules — the full reference for every rule a scoring group can contain
Scoring Groups — how scoring groups are built and attached to fleets
Discord Integration — setting up the takeoff and landing notifications that name your co-pilot
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