Declaring your sims
vCareer needs to know what sim you fly on and which aircraft you actually have access to — otherwise the mission generator can't tell whether a given mission is feasible for you. This page covers what to declare, why, and how to manage it post-onboarding.
Why we ask
The mission generator is hangar-aware. Every card on the board is feasible for at least one of your declared aircraft — no 777 missions when you only fly a Cessna. Without an accurate hangar the board either feels rigged ("why am I always offered something I can't fly?") or feels empty ("why are there only three missions?").
We declare two layers: the simulator platform (MSFS 2024, MSFS 2020, X-Plane, P3D, or FSX) and the aircraft inside that platform.
At onboarding
First time you sign in, two questions:
- Simulator platform. Pick one. You can declare multiple later from Settings, but most pilots only need one.
- Home country. Two-letter ISO code (e.g.
FR). Drives the country-anchor quota — roughly 70% of missions have a leg in your home country.
Your hangar pre-fills with the default fleet for the platform you chose — e.g. MSFS 2024 ships with the C172, A320 Neo, B748, etc. You can edit immediately. No file-upload auto-detect: we don't read your sim install.
The hangar
The hangar is your declared list of available aircraft, grouped by category (Light GA, Light Twin / Turboprop, Regional Turboprop, Business Jet, Narrow-body, Smaller Widebody, Widebody, Super-heavy). Lives at Settings → Hangar (or directly in the Hangar tab).
Each entry has:
- ICAO type designator (e.g.
C172,A20N,B77W). - Display name (e.g. "Airbus A320neo").
- Category — drives the rating tier and which classes the aircraft can pull missions for.
Adding aircraft
Click + Add aircraft in the hangar. Pick from the curated catalog — we maintain a list of ICAO type designators that map cleanly to aircraft you can actually fly on VATSIM. Per-livery variants are deliberately not in the catalog (it would explode the dropdown); we map to the ICAO type, not the addon.
If your favorite aircraft isn't in the catalog: open a request via the contact page. We expand the catalog continuously.
Declaring vs holding a type rating
This trips people up at first, so the distinction:
- Declaring an aircraft means "I have this aircraft installed on my sim and can fly it." It's a hangar entry.
- Holding a type rating means "vCareer has authorized this aircraft for mission-completion credit in a given class." It's earned (starter ratings, milestone ratings at T2 and T3) or purchased from the Ratings Shop.
You can declare an aircraft you don't yet hold the rating for — it just won't be offered for missions until you buy the rating (or hit the milestone). See Type ratings for the full pricing table.
Switching platforms
Switching simulators happens. The hangar isn't tied to the platform after onboarding: declare both platforms in Settings if you fly across two sims, and the union of aircraft across all platforms is what feeds the generator.
There's no penalty for declaring more than you actively fly. The generator picks the most appropriate aircraft per mission; over-declaring just widens what you can be offered.