MSFS 2024 Career Mode Checkrides: How to Pass Every Certification

You've done everything the game asked. You paid the credits, you flew the training missions, you queued up the certification exam. Then somewhere over the numbers you bounce the landing, or the ATC button vanishes on the taxi to parking, or you get a "failed" screen for something you're not even sure you did wrong.

Career mode checkrides are where a lot of players stall out. Not because the flying is hard — because the scoring is picky, a couple of the exams have genuinely nasty bugs, and the game does a poor job telling you what it's actually grading. This guide walks through every certification exam in MSFS 2024 career mode: what each one tests, the exact tolerances where they're known, why players fail, and how to pass on the first attempt.

If you haven't got the big picture yet, read the MSFS 2024 career mode guide first — this one assumes you already know how missions, credits and licences work. And if it's the scoring that keeps burning you, the scoring system guide goes deep on every penalty trigger.

What is a checkride in MSFS 2024 career mode?

A checkride is career mode's certification exam — a single evaluated flight you have to pass to earn a licence or rating. You pay credits once to unlock the exam, then you fly it. The game scores your flying against a set of objectives (procedures, handling, landing, ATC compliance), and if you clear the bar the certification is yours.

The important word there is "flight." Unlike a real-world checkride, there's no examiner firing questions at you and no separate oral exam. It's a normal flight in a provided aircraft with the game watching your inputs. That's good news — everything the checkride tests, you can practise for free in Free Flight beforehand. It's also why the same skills that get you good mission scores get you through checkrides: smooth handling, correct speeds, a stabilised approach, and a soft landing.

One thing to get straight early: the certification exams are separate from the Flight Training activities. The training lessons (basic handling, turns, slow flight, stalls, the traffic pattern) are optional, consequence-free tutorials. The certification exams are the gated tests that actually unlock progression. Use the first to prepare for the second.

What certifications and checkrides are in career mode?

Career mode has more than twenty certifications, but only a handful sit on the main progression spine. The core order is PPL → CPL → Instrument Rating → ATPL, with a stack of add-on ratings (multi-engine, turboprop, night, jet) that unlock specific aircraft and specializations on top. Each one is gated behind its own certification exam.

Here's the spine and the main add-ons, with what each exam typically uses and what it opens up:

Certification / checkride	Cost to unlock	Aircraft used	What it unlocks
Private Pilot Licence (PPL)	2,000 cr	GA single (Cessna 172)	Wider VFR jobs, more single-engine aircraft
Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL)	2,500 cr	GA single	Paid commercial work: charter, cargo, aerial
Instrument Rating (IR)	10,000 cr	GA single (Cessna 172)	IFR flight, all-weather jobs, live weather
Multi-Engine Rating	Separate	Light twin (e.g. Baron)	Twin-engine aircraft
Turboprop / Turbine Rating	Separate	Turboprop	King Air, PC-12, Caravan-class work
Night Currency	Separate	GA aircraft	Night operations (some specializations need it)
ATPL	40,000 cr	Airliner	Airline operations, heavy cargo, multi-crew
Jet ATP Rating	100,000 cr	Airliner (737 MAX)	Jet airliners like the 737 MAX

Costs and the exact aircraft can shift with patches, and the add-on ratings don't all show a fixed headline price the way the spine licences do — check the certification tree in your own career menu for the current numbers. Note too that specializations sit behind these certs: search and rescue, charter, cargo, VIP, firefighting and medevac all require the matching certification, and a few of them silently want Night Currency before they'll appear. And remember the two hard rules of career mode — only default Asobo aircraft are usable, and there is no aircraft leasing or renting, no matter how many forum posts wish there were.

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How do you pass the PPL certification exam?

The PPL exam is a full VFR flight that tests the fundamentals: pre-flight, taxi, takeoff, straight-and-level, turns, climbs, descents, a circuit, and a landing — plus ATC communication throughout. It's the most forgiving checkride in the game, and the overwhelming majority of failures come down to one thing: the landing.

Fly it like a careful student and you'll pass. The specific things the game is watching:

• Taxi. Keep ground speed under 25 knots and stay on the yellow line. Beacon on before you move. It's a small slice of the score but an easy one to throw away.
• Takeoff and climb. Full power, track the centreline with rudder (most singles need right rudder), rotate at the right speed and climb at Vy. Don't yank it off the ground.
• Turns, climbs, descents. Smooth and coordinated. The exam isn't demanding aerobatic precision — it wants controlled, predictable flying without wild altitude or heading excursions.
• The landing. This is the whole ballgame. Aim for a stabilised approach and a touchdown under 200 fpm on the centreline. Anything over roughly 400 fpm reads as a hard landing and starts costing you serious points; above about 600 fpm you're taking damage.

The single biggest PPL tip: fly the exact exam in Free Flight two or three times first. Same aircraft, same airport, same pattern. Ten minutes of practice turns a nerve-wracking test into muscle memory. If you can consistently grease a 172 onto the centreline, the PPL is a formality.

How do you pass the CPL certification exam?

The Commercial Pilot Licence exam is essentially a more demanding version of the PPL flight — the same fundamentals held to tighter standards, flown as if a paying client were on board. If you passed the PPL cleanly, the CPL won't surprise you; the difficulty step is smaller than the price jump suggests.

What changes is the expectation of polish. The game wants clean, professional flying: precise speed control, no sloppy altitude wandering, smooth power changes, and — again — a soft, accurate landing. Treat every input as though a passenger can feel it, because in the mission types the CPL unlocks, they can.

Two practical notes. First, the CPL is the gate to paid contracts, so it's worth passing well rather than scraping through — good habits here carry straight into charter and cargo work. Second, don't confuse the CPL checkride's difficulty with what comes after it. The exam is manageable; the jobs it unlocks (bush strips, weather, heavier aircraft) are where the real challenge lives. Pass the exam, then keep practising the hard stuff in Free Flight.

Why is the instrument rating checkride the wall?

The Instrument Rating is where career mode progression grinds to a halt for a lot of players. The exam is a full IFR flight in instrument conditions ending in an instrument approach — usually an ILS in the Cessna 172 — and it demands a skill set that VFR flying never taught you. It's not that the exam is unfair; it's that instrument flying is a genuinely different discipline, and the game throws you at it with minimal hand-holding.

Here's what makes the IR the wall, and how to get over it.

Instrument flying is a new skill, not a harder version of an old one. VFR is intuitive — look outside, fly the picture. IFR is procedural: fly the needles, manage the approach, trust the instruments when you can't see. The first time you're in solid cloud trying to intercept a localiser while configuring the aircraft, it feels like starting over. Because in a way you are.

The approach is the exam. You need to intercept and track the localiser, capture the glideslope, and fly it down to a landing. For an ILS in the 172: have the ILS frequency tuned on NAV1, your CDI source set to NAV1 (not GPS), and your first notch of flaps in by the final approach fix. Anticipate the needles rather than chasing them — a small correction now beats a big one when the needle's already pinned. If you've never flown one, our ILS approach guide breaks the whole procedure down from chart to touchdown.

Watch out for the taxi-to-parking bug. This one has bitten a lot of people. After you land and taxi to the assigned parking spot, the exam asks you to announce "taxi to parking" via ATC — and players have repeatedly reported that the ATC prompt goes unresponsive, so you physically can't complete the final step and the exam won't finish. If it happens, try cycling the ATC menu; if that fails, restart the exam and try to reach parking cleanly the first time. It's a known, long-standing complaint, so don't assume you flew it wrong — you may have flown it perfectly and hit a bug.

The IR isn't a wall because the checkride is brutal. It's a wall because you can't fake instrument competence. Put the hours in with the training missions and a few practice ILS approaches in varying weather, and the exam becomes the easy part. What comes after — real IFR cargo runs in live weather — is where the rating earns its keep.

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Photo: Coyau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What do the multi-engine, night and jet ratings test?

The add-on ratings each certify one specific capability, so their exams are narrower and more focused than the licence checkrides. A multi-engine exam tests twin handling including asymmetric flight, a night rating tests a night circuit and landing, and the jet/heavy ratings test airliner procedures and energy management. You pass them the same way as everything else: fly the profile smoothly and land it well.

• Multi-Engine Rating. Flown in a light twin such as the Baron, this exam covers twin-engine handling and typically a simulated engine failure — you're expected to keep control on one engine and land safely. Heads-up: at launch there was a reported bug where the "failed" engine was merely throttled to zero rather than shut down, and the game then flagged an engine "restart" on landing as a failure. It may well be patched by now, but if you fail a multi-engine exam for a reason that makes no sense, this is a known culprit worth searching the current forums about before you blame yourself.
• Night Currency. A night flight and landing. The flying is standard, but darkness makes judging the flare harder, so lean on your instruments for vertical speed and don't rely on the visual picture alone. Some specializations quietly require this rating, so it's worth grabbing even if you don't think you need it.
• Turboprop / Turbine and Jet ratings. These certify progressively more capable aircraft and test the procedures and energy management that come with them. Jets fly nothing like props — far more energy to manage, everything happens faster, and you're leaning on the FMS and autopilot. Don't attempt the jet checkride cold; spend real time in the 737 in Free Flight first. Our autopilot guide and G1000/G3000 avionics guide cover the systems you'll be living inside once you're up the tiers.

Why do players keep failing career mode checkrides?

Most checkride failures aren't caused by bad flying — they're caused by a small number of repeat offenders. The landing is the number one killer, followed by procedural slips (taxi speed, lights, missed ATC calls) and a couple of genuine bugs. Knowing the common failure modes ahead of time is most of the battle.

The recurring causes, roughly in order of how often they end a checkride:

1. Hard or off-centre landings. Landing smoothness scoring is strict — players have reported a single bump dropping a landing score dramatically. Under 200 fpm on the centreline is the target. If you're bouncing, it's almost always an unstable approach; fix the approach and the landing fixes itself.
2. Unstable approaches. Too fast, too high, not configured. If you're not stabilised by 500 feet AGL, go around — career mode doesn't penalise a go-around, but it absolutely penalises the bad landing you were about to make.
3. Procedural penalties. Taxiing over ~25 knots, wandering off the taxiway centreline, strobes on during taxi, landing lights off, or not acknowledging ATC. Individually small, collectively enough to sink a marginal exam.
4. The IR taxi-to-parking ATC bug. Covered above — a genuine blocker on the instrument exam, not pilot error.
5. Busting speeds. The 250-knot limit below 10,000 feet is enforced even where it seems absurd. Watch it in faster aircraft.
6. Chasing a bad situation. Trying to "save" an unstable approach instead of going around. The single most expensive habit in the whole mode.

The through-line: the scoring system rewards boring, procedurally correct flying over impressive piloting. A smooth 3-degree glideslope to a 150 fpm touchdown will always beat a dramatic save. Fly like you're trying not to spill a coffee in the back.

What happens when you fail a checkride, and does a retake cost credits?

If you fail a certification exam, you don't lose the certification — you just don't earn it yet, and you can retake the exam. The key thing new players worry about: retakes are free. You pay credits once to unlock the test, and after that you can attempt it as many times as you need without paying again.

That changes the psychology of the whole thing. There's no financial penalty for failing a checkride, so there's no reason to gamble on an exam you're not ready for and no reason to rage-quit after a bad attempt. Fail it, note what went wrong, jump back in. The only cost is your time.

That said, a couple of caveats. Failing an exam doesn't hurt your wallet, but failing a paid mission absolutely does — repair bills, reputation hits, the works. So keep the two mental buckets separate: exams are low-stakes practice you happen to be graded on; missions are where the money and reputation live. And because retakes are free, the smart move is to treat your first attempt at any exam as a reconnaissance run if you're unsure — but honestly, you're better off doing that recon in Free Flight, where there's no results screen at all.

If you've dug yourself into a broader hole — broke, low reputation, stuck — that's a mission-economy problem rather than a checkride problem, and the career mode recovery guide is the one you want.

Can you pass checkrides on PS5 and Xbox controllers?

Yes — console players fly the exact same career mode and the exact same checkrides as PC players, with no difficulty concessions. The only real disadvantage is the controller: a gamepad's short sticks make the fine, smooth inputs that tolerance-based maneuvers and soft landings demand harder than a joystick or yoke. The fix is in your control settings, not your skill.

The landing-smoothness scoring is strict enough that coarse stick inputs are the number one reason console players bounce checkrides. Dial in your sensitivity and you remove most of the disadvantage:

• Reduce sensitivity. Many console pilots run pitch and roll sensitivity somewhere between -50% and -80%. That flattens the response near centre so small corrections stay small and you stop over-controlling the flare.
• Set a small centre deadzone. Around 10-15% stops stick drift from nudging the aircraft, without making the controls feel dead. Keep the extremity (outer) deadzone at zero so you can still reach full deflection when you need it.
• On PS5, try the DualSense gyro. Motion control lets you make fine lateral inputs by tilting the pad like a yoke, which some players find smoother than the thumbstick for approach corrections. Its sensitivity, neutral position and deadzones are all adjustable.

Beyond settings, the technique is identical to PC: stabilised approach, idle power in the flare, ease the nose up, let it settle. If you're consistently over-banking or ballooning the flare, that's a sensitivity problem, not a "controllers can't do this" problem. Find your personal sweet spot through a few Free Flight circuits before you spend it on an exam.

Have Sim Update 5 and 6 changed the checkrides?

Recent patches haven't overhauled the checkrides themselves, but they've fixed a lot of the surrounding friction that used to cause bogus failures. If your memory of career mode is from the rough launch period, a good chunk of what frustrated you has been addressed. Always keep your sim updated — several of the old "the exam is broken" complaints are simply gone now.

The relevant recent changes:

• Sim Update 5 (released 30 April 2026) reworked mission spawning so the dispatcher stops trying to park oversized aircraft in tiny spots, and added an ATC queueing system that prioritises your requests over background AI traffic — which means less sitting on the ground waiting for a conga line of AI before you're cleared. It also unlocked the Heavy and VTOL career specializations and shipped further mission-flow and progression fixes.
• Sim Update 6 beta (public from 6 July 2026) includes a career-specific fix for an incorrect redirection when ending a training and jumping into the training activities, plus clearer documentation of how the fuel-burn-rate setting affects your effective range. Its optional walkaround-skip is limited to Free Flight, not career.

None of that changes what the exams test, but it does mean fewer flights ruined by ATC gridlock or spawn weirdness. The core advice is unchanged: the checkrides reward smooth, procedurally correct flying, and that's been true through every update.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do career mode checkrides cost credits every time you fail?

No. You pay credits once to unlock a certification exam, and after that you can retake it as many times as you need for free. There's no per-attempt fee and failing doesn't cost you the unlock. The only thing you spend on a retake is time, which is exactly why there's no reason to attempt an exam before you're ready — and no reason to quit after a bad run.

What is the hardest checkride in MSFS 2024 career mode?

The Instrument Rating exam is the one most players get stuck on. It's a full IFR flight in cloud ending in an instrument approach, and it requires genuinely different skills from the VFR licences before it. It also carries a well-known bug where the end-of-exam "taxi to parking" ATC prompt can go unresponsive. Practise ILS approaches in Free Flight first, and if the ATC prompt hangs, cycle the menu or restart the exam.

Which aircraft do you fly in the career mode checkrides?

The game provides the aircraft for each exam. The PPL, CPL and Instrument Rating exams are flown in a general-aviation single — commonly the Cessna 172 — while the add-on ratings use type-appropriate aircraft: a light twin like the Baron for the multi-engine rating and an airliner such as the 737 MAX for the jet rating. You can't substitute your own aircraft for a checkride, but you can practise the same type in Free Flight beforehand.

Are console checkrides easier than PC?

No. PS5 and Xbox players fly identical checkrides with identical scoring — there's no console difficulty reduction. The only difference is the input device: a gamepad makes smooth, precise inputs harder than a joystick or yoke. Reducing your controller sensitivity to around -50% to -80% and setting a small centre deadzone closes most of that gap, especially for the strict landing-smoothness scoring.

Do you need the training missions before a checkride?

You don't strictly need them, but they help enormously — especially for the instrument rating, where the training missions walk you through IFR navigation, approach procedures and instrument scanning in a structured way Free Flight can't replicate. Think of the training missions and a few Free Flight practice runs as your prep; the checkride is the exam you sit once the prep has made it boring. For approach work specifically, our ILS approach guide and holding pattern entries guide fill in the procedural detail.

A note for international players

Career mode is region-agnostic, but two small things trip up players outside the US. Altitudes and vertical speeds in the sim are in feet and feet-per-minute — that's aviation standard worldwide, so the "under 200 fpm" landing target applies to everyone regardless of where you fly. Altimeter settings, though, differ by region: most of the world uses hPa (millibars) while the US uses inches of mercury (inHg). Career mode follows the local convention of wherever you're flying, so if the numbers on your altimeter setting look unfamiliar, that's why — set it to match the ATIS/briefing value and don't try to convert in your head mid-approach.

Final thoughts

Career mode checkrides look intimidating because the game surrounds them with opaque scoring and a couple of stubborn bugs. But strip that away and every exam comes down to the same short list: fly smooth, hit your speeds, stay stabilised, grease the landing, and don't skip the little procedural stuff like taxi speed and lights. Do that and the PPL and CPL are formalities, the rating exams are quick, and the only real wall — the instrument rating — falls the moment instrument flying stops feeling foreign.

The two things worth tattooing on the inside of your eyelids: retakes are free, so there's never a reason to gamble on an exam you're not ready for; and Free Flight is a consequence-free practice room that most players never use. Fly the exam before the exam. When the real one comes around, it'll be the most boring flight of your session — which, in career mode scoring, is exactly what a pass looks like.