Introduction

Tailstrike is a shared world of aircraft that keep their state. Each aircraft on the network is one specific aircraft. It is parked in one specific place. It holds the fuel, the parking position and the history that each pilot before you left. You lease it, you fly it, and the next pilot starts from the place where you stopped it.

The core idea

• Each Tailstrike aircraft is in one place at one time. It is at the place where the last pilot parked it.
• You lease an available aircraft, then you fly it to a new airport. That airport becomes the departure airport of the next pilot. The fuel at your landing and your parking position also carry forward.
• The Tailstrike plugin records the flight directly from your simulator. Fly online or offline, in the aircraft that you want. Each flight counts.
• Each pilot flies in real time, at 1x speed. Therefore the network shares one world that is the same for each pilot.
• The record is automatic. Land, then come to a stop. Tailstrike logs the leg, the aircraft moves, and its history gets one more flight.

More than one way to fly

• Missions give the network shared objectives: fly-ins, challenges and journeys with more than one leg. See Missions.
• Community missions: each week, the pilots propose missions and vote. The winner becomes a real mission for the full network. See Community missions.
• Intelligent Dispatch writes an AI flight assignment for you. The assignment matches your aircraft and the time that you have. See Intelligent Dispatch.
• Supporters can add real aircraft to the shared world, and they can put their name on an aircraft. See Becoming a Supporter. To fly is free, and it stays free.

Key terms

• Hangar: your pilot profile. It holds your statistics, your records, your badges and your flight history.
• The fleet: each aircraft on Tailstrike. Look at the fleet in the Aircraft Registry.
• Tailnumber: the unique registration of an aircraft, for example N123AB. Each tailnumber is one specific aircraft, and it has its own permanent history.
• Lease: exclusive control of one aircraft, so that you can fly it. No other pilot can use it until your lease ends.
• Leg: one flight from one airport to another airport.
• Plugin: the Tailstrike desktop application. It connects your simulator to the network, and it records your flights.
• TailID: your short pilot code. It appears on your profile, and it is also your invitation code.