Starting over, and loving it.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

After reaching the "end game" of getting into big birds as soon as possible, and then finding myself with a fleet of 50+ aircraft ranging from as huge as possible (Boeing Pelican...too much work as You have to hand fly it or micro manage AI's not rated to fly it...I hung onto one for about 3 weeks and sold it back to Boeing...I think it broke even...I don't really care, it was a huge PITA), Anatov 225's...huge cash makers and way too easy to Win the game once you get a few in the fleet...down to custom jiggered bd5-j's configured to haul cargo (don't ask...I have no idea where the 800lbs of cargo goes, it just went in there somehow at 0,0,0 with reference to the datum point... :\ .

I discovered that AH doesn't like large fleets much...it really bogs down on nearly every operation when the company gets too large...waits of 15 seconds between opportunities to hit the next "OK" button were common.

And after micro managing all that fleet all morning every morning (and shaving in the car) and suddenly being faced with a dodgy FSX that kept giving error messages from all the bloated freeware/gauges/effects folders... fark it...I completely uninstalled all addons, then FSX itself. I reloaded everything back in order... reinstalled the core game files (sp1, sp2, FSUIPC), then upon entering AH i hit the "DELETE" and the "OMG YES...'OK'...whatever...just doooo EEET" buttons for SOL Air, my main company (Sounds of Taps playing in the background) is dead...880 million dollars in the bank gone, 50 aircraft and 55 pilots suddenly let go to their own devices....phew....what a relief.

 

So now I am concentrating on a fresh install of FSX and Only Payware aircraft, Carenado and FD products, which had proven to be stable throughout all my previous game bugs.

The "Hard" company I made in the Marquesas Islands was getting most of my interest anyhow...starting a game is always funner than finishing it imo.

I love this spot for its simple geography...the islands create a kite shaped system of routes that are easy to assign to specific pilots (although some jump around as needed ofc).

I tried a half dozen ways to organize fleets and pilots on the previous company and am liking my new system alot.

Each leg/base of the kite has a designated pilot and aircraft appropriate for it's length and airfields.

 

NTMD-NTMN @ 92 miles is the longest leg down the middle of the kite has a Piper Navajo who sticks to that...kite stick. They are the longest runways and handle the airplane well.

The middle islands ntmu and ntmp are rather difficult to land with sub 3000' runways, and thus the Navajo never goes there even though it is rated to land at fields that size...the trees are a killer to get in without overshooting...I broke 5 of Navajos learning how to land at NTMP, and decided it wasn't worth trusting an expensive plane in AI hands to hual an extra 500 lbs over a Caravan, which drops over those trees easilly....so Caranado C208 Caravans service NTMD-NTMP-NTMN, and NTMD-NTMU-NTMN.

The short single legs are serviced by two C337 Skymasters, Carenados.

And a Piper Archer II (Carenado), my starter plane, which I had to (was able to! ) purchase after selling the stock c172, serves as a "scraps hauler" for anything the others can't deal with in time.

Pilots are labeled by their routes: for example, the Navajo Pilot is named Charlie Fano, his full AH name is DN Charlie Fano, his plane's Registry is "DN".

The Caravans and Pilots are: DUN, DUN+name and DPN, DPN+name

C337's: DP and DU

Reserve Archer: R (Pilot name is R+"Name")

 

^helps to keep pilots, planes, routes and jobs straight in my often overwhelmed and dyslexic head.

IF I decide to expand and haul to areas outside my islands, I might have to go back to a simple number system pilot #1 in  airplane #1..etc...(because outside of fixed routes I totaly lose track of where pilots are/were/will be...but for small set of routes the above is helping with organizing stuff.

 

As for training pilots...this is working out great:

I leased a Red and White C172 (Carenado ofc), and a stock Red and White Piper Cub (My fleet planes are blue themed). Nice bright visible trainers for new pilots.

What I do is hire new well rated pilots and make them "fly to airport" in one of the trainers All Day Long, I que up Ntmn, ntmp, ntmn, ntmu, ntmp, ntmu, etc etc from sunup to sundown. If they don't break the plane after a couple days, i run few jobs with them in the trainers, small stuff and only one job per leg...if they still don't break anything, I give them a number in front of their name and they sit in the hangar till I feel I need a replacement or a new plane. I have identified a couple really crappy pilots with 5 star ratings this way, at a minimal cost, repairing a cub is almost free...the c172 is cheaper to repair than reputation.

 

Kite Cargo in the lovely Marquesas is open for business and the business is good.

 

In the future I think i will be making new starter companies in new areas I want to explore...simply opening a new base and dropping leased aircraft there thanks to a half billion in the bank wasn't actually all that interesting.

 

 

[brett 2,315]

More power to ya Matt.   Sometimes keeping it simple brings the sweetest rewards. Good luck with the new company.

[Corsaire31 419]

Sounds good, good luck for the new company and the Marquesas is certainly a nice place. It would be too much for me to hire and manage so many AI pilots. My companies are still single man... but I started them in "career" mode which makes the opening phase quite long.

It's always exciting to start one !

[Gunner 69]

Bets fun is the start of the company, good luck to it. I did the same when i reached ~ 1.5 bil $, though my fleet had only about 15 planes. With the new company i use only the Carenado Baron, and the 182 's for the AI. Flying manually is much more fun and my new goal is to build the company without loans. Erm ...i have what i have with the banks. Anyway i have 6 mil already ...i'm a millionaire!

[Slopey 4]

Well done guys - this is exactly why I wrote AH in the first place.  Starting up companies and working at them with a small fleet is infinitely more rewarding (imho) than blowing a billion to fly AI 747s all over the place

 

Enjoy!

[Kasper 14]

I respect you guys for getting that far. Since I stubbornly refuse to hire more than one pilot I never get that far.

That and the fact that I refuse to fly anything resembling a modern jetliner in AH keeps me poor and needing to fly most jobs myself.

 

But I agree with the you all: starting over and building the new company to a level you are interested in is the best part of using AH.

Best of luck with the new company.

[brett 2,315]

Sometimes I feel like firing my AI's and going back to a one man outfit. At first it was fun making the fast money and planning the routes out for the other pilots but I think I enjoyed just grabbing a couple of jobs and flying them myself better. It didn't feel so much like a job but more of an adventure. After all, AH money isn't everything.     

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

The choir agrees.

I found out early on that every new pilot/plane sped up the wallet and fleet fattening...but added dramatically to the tedium of assigning jobs. 3 months of that was more than enough.

the small aluminum is much more interesting to bomb about in then the big iron...and indeed the point of ah was not to get me interested in logistics...although it did to some extent which applies to my rl job as a courier. (I have even used fsx to scout out mountain routes for my real courier job...found/confirmed a great shortcut around a freeway construction bottleneck that way).

I made a new company last night on the tip of south America. OMG...Mooney 201...what a brilliant starter plane. 750-860 cargo...170ish cruise speed...and if you sell them 172 and go deep into hock u can fly your first job with it. I experimented with the stock Mooney, then bought carenados...delicious.

[brett 2,315]

Mooney is a nice cruiser, always wondered why the door is only on the passenger side though.   

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Heh...the Piper Archer II is the same Brett, one door on the passenger side for both front and rear seats. The real one I flew for my RL lesson was a tight squeeze getting my 6'3" (thankfully skinny) frame over the passenger seat into the pilot's seat. I presume it is to make sure the passenger gets out before the pilot can jump out.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Adding a few screen shots from Ushuaia. I opened two bases to generate base to base as well as more jobs in general.

 

SCFM and SCDW are the home for "Frigid Aero" and Sole Pilot (so far) Mick Locke (cuz it sounded like Mukluk...which are standard footwear down there I presume .

 

Love this plane, great speed, climb rate, and a very respectable cargo capacity...  loving the scenery down here so far.

 

Dramatic contrasts of colors, textures and elevations...could use more trees i think though

 

New favorite Starter Plane...she's expensive but worth going deep into hock to start out in.

[brett 2,315]

I guess the winds have wiped out the trees in that part of the world.

 

Sweet looking paint, is that Squeekers freebie repaint from ORBX?

[Corsaire31 419]

Nice...  I have plans for a future company based in Punta Arenas, but I have enough to deal with three at the moment ! I have GEX World Edition Asia and South America installed already.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

I found the trees...they are just rather Subtle:

 

And one more scenery...gosh it's pretty down there.

 

 

Brett, that paint is just one of the standard paints that came with Carenado's Mooney. The prettiest of the 3 imo.

Gosh I want to do my own repaints though, I have several paint schemes in mind for my companies...just need a way to make em happen...as a former T-shirt artist that used Illustrator and Photoshop everyday for 10 years, I am itching to make my own paints. Getting my wallet to fork out 600+ bucks for PS is not gonna be so easy though, esp as repaints would be my only use for it as I don't do art anymore. (Got kind of tired of seeing Other people use it to buy custom houses, and they don't even invite me over for dinner. Prolly just sour grapes though... I'm certain their salesmanship actually sold those white t-shirts, the pictures of the cars, trains, and airplanes on them had nothing to do with it. lol.)

 

 

 

[Frog on Toast 6]

Have you thought about using gimp? Freeware digital art program, I've heard good things about it, bit I've never used it myself. I can provide links to some other useful repaint programs at the weekend (away all week at work), not image editors, but designed to manipulate FSX skins.

[brett 2,315]

  

 

Brett, that paint is just one of the standard paints that came with Carenado's Mooney. The prettiest of the 3 imo.

 

 

Sorry, really need to wear my glasses, thought it was this HD repaint and VC.(look at bottom of page) Looks the same.

 

Gimp and Paint.net are both good and their free.  Aircraft painting to start and here and the freeware DXTBmp Happy painting.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I had tried to download Gimp a few weeks ago after seeing some mention of it in the repaint forum, and the virus I picked up prompted my recent system restore and full re-install of FSX and all addons....which I don't actually regret as the game is running MUCH smoother now .

 

So I downloaded Paint.net from Cnet.com and it seems to be bug free...I will make some stabs at painting stabs and other extremities hopefully this weekend. Terrified to repaint a carenado, so I'll have to load up an old favorite freeware to practice on...or mess with one of the stock birds perhaps?

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Adding another couple of shots here to avoid making a new thread.

 

Carenado Bonanza...Very Nice starter plane...it is a bit expensive for a trade in right off the bat but JUST doable at $263,614.00 = 100,000 cash, 100,000 for your c172, and -$63,614 in dept to the bank before you fly your first job (- insurance and first tank of gas). Tip...don't load it to the max...it gets pretty pitchy when loaded to the gills...but Otto Pilot can cope with it if you are desperate to "get it there in one leg".

Very fast (will cruise at 190...bottom of its "yellow range" easilly) and a very respectable cargo hold (1040 lbs + 60 gals of gas).

Looks pretty too. This shot is from my  practice landings in Napa...I'm using the plane "for real" in a new company in the Caribbean...a nice area with lots of 60-120 mile away fields.

 

And down in Ushaia I happened to pop into FSX just in time to get into the que to take off...a first for me to have Both AI's active in front of me at the same time...I tried to follow the C337 as it was heading to the same destination...but...it took a Stupid way out of the way route and I lost patience with the fuel wasting moron and headed straight there.

 

[brett 2,315]

 Haha, best not to watch your AI's to closely, just make sure the money count is right.   

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Me and the Lad/ies down in Ushuaia have been busy busy. We sold our C185 Cessna and C337 Skymaster in favor of upgrading to a Virtavia C-7 Caribou (A former US Army Parachute team hauler we got for a good deal till we can get her repainted...if ever).

 

 

Wonderful plane for AH. Its a big plane, but leases for around the same as a Twotter, hauls considerably more than twotter, and faster too. Regretably its VC systems are not nearly as operational as the Aerosoft Twotter, which wins hands down for more immersive/realish cockpit experience...and for all its wonderful foot options from tundra, ski, ski/tire, float, amphib...and just wheels.

 

 

However, this C7 is the STOLiest plane I have flown short of a couple attempts in helicopters.

This is stopped after hitting the beginning of the black skid marks during testing in FSX outside of AH...different paint ofc.

 

It is BIG...here again stopped (after hitting the numbers...seriously stol) next to a hangar for scale.

 

Flying over new  ORBx California scenery...my Cali bases got facelifts

 

Some stats:

 

Cruise speed: 158

Max Speed: 235 ( I could only get it up to 180k without diving her)

Empty Weight: 19130

Max Gross: 28500

Fuel: 830gal

Stall flaps up: 68k

Stall Full Flaps: 55k

 

On sale at PC Aviator for 10.97 USD

http://www.pcaviator.com/store/product.php?productid=18651&cat=0&page=1

 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

I did a second "repaint" last night.

 

The first test on my Ex-Army Caribou boldened me up to poke around in a Carenado folder.

 

Nothing fancy, just trying out tools in the unfamiliar to me Paint.net program...a color/hue change from the Red/White skin to a Green/White skin. Lots of selecting and color changing. Not overjoyed with the clunky Paint.net program after years of Photoshop work...but...meh, it's free and apparently workable so far.

 

(missed a couple stripes on one side...meh)

 

[brett 2,315]

Looks really nice. Good luck with the color change.

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

This seems as good a topic to update after my recent computer woes.

After Windows8.0 crapped out on me, refusing even to go into safe mode I took it in for a complete overhaul and update.

 

Win7

i5 cpu

asus motherboard

(will swap to a nvidia graphics card when I can afford it, but so far the AMD is working well)

larger powersupply

beefy CPU cooler

 

The system is running better than ever and I have yet to overclock the cpu.

 

However, not being a religous backuppper, I lost my recent progress in AH companies...setting me back to March of this year.

So

Almost starting over and LOVING IT!

hahaha.

 

"Eureka We Haul It" went from close to $500,000,000 USD and  3 each of

-Valkyrie

-747

-767

-757

-A321

-A319

-C130

..and miscellaneous planes that I personally flew from BAE 146 QT down to Robinson R22.

 

Suddenly, I woke up and it was all a dream of filthy lucre and went back to work with a fleet of 3 DC-6's, 2 DC-3's, and a mixed fleet of GA haulers that I flew for rep points, and 10 million in the bank.

I did recall a couple cool recent planes from that dream and sold most of my GA fleet, the DC 3's, and upgraded those to DASH-8's, and I switched to my new favorite Dream Plane (groan) Flysimware's Cessna 402.

 

Piccies!

 

This plane is not quite up to Carenado quality, but it is at least as good as, and possibly better quality than the Lionheart and some ISIS addons I have....and I love all those.

But it has a couple features I really love for Airhauler that I wish more addons included...the ability to switch between a cabin full of seats to a cabin configured as a hualer via one of the Shift-1 pop up menu, as well as other things like switching off the pilot, or a pilot with or without headset and/or sunglasses...sweet for screen shots as opposed to: "Hey, look at me hauling 3000 lbs of livestock somewhere under all those seats :( " LOL :

 

 

It has a Very functional and attractive VC with easy access to AP functions once the main switch below throttles is armed (and Yaw Damper is right there too).

Ironic that I gave their MASH copter a razzberry on one of these forums for it's cockpit layout, and then this model of theirs turns out to be one of my favorites. Also noteworthy that Flysimware actually made a M.A.S.H. copter VC model just for me taking my suggested layout into account since they were doing a P3D update for the model at the time anyhow. Currently my favorite addon company for that exemplary service! I wish they had more models I wanted...but I'm afraid I have just about all I can use from their line for Air Hauler. Hoping for more. If they read this and have a 10k-15k-ish  hauler on the table, I want it.

 

Lastly, once imported into AH it is a very cost effective 3,000 lb hauler (short fueled, or overloaded...it handles quite a bit of overloading if not taking off from a high altitude). It leases for a bit over 70,000 USD, and buy price is 570,000ish. It can cruise comfortably at 185kts, and pushes to 200 if you have fuel to burn. Sounds great too.

 

A really great plane:

 

 

A few other company owners woke up poorer than they went to sleep, have shaken of the constant knocking on the door by creditors demanding back rents since March...and are shouldering on with building their new and improved Dream Companies.

 

And a few became merely figments of several AH CEOs' post March Madness :D

 

Happy Hauling!!!

[Corsaire31 419]

Nothing like starting over !   And nice Cessna !

[brett 2,315]

Dream or nightmare?  Good luck starting over.  I get bored once the company is doing good and often start over to regain that initial thrill of a startup.