---
title: "In flight: the actual letter, the projected letter and the outlook"
description: "A registration sent to a society and acknowledged but not yet published is in flight. It never changes the actual letter. It moves a projected letter, and the direction of travel is summarised as an outlook. Concept only: the rules are under construction."
image: "https://trackforge.studio/docs/img/trackforge-social-card.png"
---

> Documentation Index
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# In flight: the actual letter, the projected letter and the outlook

:::caution[Concept, not yet in the rule book]
In flight, the projected letter and the outlook are committed in the build plan and not yet in the rule book. The time limits per route and the shares that set the outlook words are starting values under calibration. This page describes the idea so that a reader of a future rating knows what the three fields mean.
:::

A catalogue is rarely still. Between one rating and the next, the owner or TrackForge sends registrations to societies, opens claims and resolves disputes, and each takes weeks or months to show in the society's published record. The rating has to say something honest about work that has been done and has not yet landed.

## The actual letter never moves for work in progress

The **actual** letter is computed from the registration state the sources show today. A registration sent and acknowledged but not yet published does not change it: the defect is still there in the society's record, and the actual score still sees it.

## In flight is an overlay, not a state

A defect row can carry an **in-flight** overlay: evidence that something has been done about it, with the date it was sent, the society, the acknowledged result and the society's work number where one was returned, the target share, and the date by which it should have landed. The underlying state (sound, defective, not checked, not applicable) is untouched.

In-flight evidence is of two classes:

- **Class 1**: acknowledged and uncontested. The society has confirmed the file entered its queue and no counter-claim is recorded.
- **Class 2**: contested or bilateral. A counter-claim, a dispute, or a change that needs another party's agreement.

The owner's own to-do list is never in-flight evidence. Only a transaction the society has acknowledged counts, and for a catalogue kept in the TrackForge Workspace the acknowledged sends cross to the rating as class 1 evidence.

Each overlay has an expiry: the time the rule book allows for that kind of transaction at that route. An overlay whose time has passed is written as expired, no longer overlays anything, and the fix list says so ("stalled at the society", "counterparty silent"). The clock is keyed to the defect, so sending the same registration twice does not reset it.

## The projected letter

The **projected** letter is the actual tuple re-rated with every class 1 defect treated as landed at the acknowledged share. Class 2 never moves it. The projected letter is capped by every floor the actual letter is capped by, is never better than the evidence supports, and never travels without the actual letter beside it.

## The outlook

The **outlook** summarises the direction of travel in three parts: a word (positive, stable, negative or developing, developing when a material share of the in-flight weight is class 2, so the direction depends on another party); a signed weight, the share of the catalogue's weight in flight, positive where it would raise the letter and negative where it would lower it; and the change in measured money those items carry, in pounds, or "no amounts" where none is measured. The shares that choose the word are starting values under calibration.

## How the three read together

A buyer reading "actual B, projected A, outlook positive" learns that the catalogue's registrations are in moderate order today, that acknowledged work already at the societies would lift it, and that nothing material depends on a counterparty. "Actual B, projected B, outlook developing" says the opposite: something is in motion, and whether it lands is not in the owner's hands. Both say so with dates, in the fix list.

Source: https://trackforge.studio/docs/certification/rating/in-flight/index.mdx