Air Hauler and Cargo Pilot

[Longbeard 0]

I apologize for my laziness, I'm sure I could figure all of this out if I searched enough. But would someone mind giving me the "Reader's Digest" version of what Air Hauler and Cargo Pilot is/is about please? i.e. What's the basic idea of them, how much do they cost, where to get them, are they worth it, etc.

I appreciate any help.

John

[mutley 4,498]

Hi John,

I will defer to John Allard on this one but they are both addons that run along side flight sim where by you have a freight business and try to earn your fortune delivering freight. Essentially giving you a reward and another purpose for making the flight, a bit like a mission. The programs interface and interact with flightsim.

Cargo Pilot was (is) a very successful product but left pilots wanting more features and more of a real world type challenge. It was hoped JF would respond to a wish lish produced by existing owners of CP to produce a CP2 with these features.

There didn't appear to be any movement on this so Duncan (Slopey) Murray developed his own version called AirHauler. This did what CP2 would be hoped to do in spades!

John has written a preview here

[Longbeard 0]

They both sound pretty good to me, I'm going to try to pick up a copy of CP for now, to give me something to do until AH is out.

Thanks!

[allardjd 1,853]

John,

 

Mutley covered it pretty well. AH was written to fill the vacuum after it became obvious that JF was not going to do anything soon on a CP2.

 

They are based on the same premise - you are a start-up air freight company with a single airplane and a little cash. You use some of your cash to establish an office at an airport in FS. The program generates freight jobs for you to evaluate, accept and fly to their destinations, for which you are rewarded with some more cash.

 

CP was a ground-breaker in that genre but eventually left us hungry for some additonal features. I won't criticize it. It was remarkable in the beginning but eventually wore thin with some unrealistic constraints, assumptions and routines - no software satisfies forever. I don't regret the money I spent on it. It was fun and I got many hours of enjoyment out of it.

 

AH is CP on steroids. The basis is the same, but it has many, many added features and does some things very differently from CP. The best example I can give is continuity of location. If a CP job took you to, say Atlanta and you flew it there, it didn't matter. Your next CP job could begin from anywhere. You and the airplane just magically happened to be wherever the next accepted job originated from.

 

In AH, continuity of location is rigorous, for AC, pilot(s) and cargoes. If your next job originates from somewhere other than where you are, you have to fly there to pick it up.

 

There are dozens of new and important features in AH, but if you read the preview Mutley points to, you'll know nearly as much about it as we do. It's pretty much a brain-dump on the topic. We reveal pretty much everything but the source code.

 

As a final note, AH was developed independently of JF and as it was nearing completion, JF was one of the companies who became interested in being the publisher for it. The developer came to an agreement with JF and it is they who will produce, market and distribute AH. JF is a class act and it's a good - no, a great partnership.

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

I did read that review Joe linked to, very well written by the way!

So, in your opinion, with AH being so near release, would I be better off to save my money and wait on AH, or go ahead and get CP?

I'm getting a little bit bored with the same old routine myself, James and I don't get to fly MP as often as we used to, and I've pretty well reached the end of my learning ability on my own, and without someone who is experience to basically "hold my hand" and teach me more, there's not much left to do in FSX. I've flown to all of the places I could think of, and now, without a reason to do so, many times I don't even fly. That sucks, because I haven't really had FSX all that long.

I would really like to get some sort of multiplayer "something" going on at some point, but it seems most people fly offline most of the time.

[allardjd 1,853]

I can't advise on buying CP. I guess it's up to your personal finances - it's not very expensive.

 

For me, CP pulled me out of the same FS doldrums you describe. Having a program provide some purpose and a selection of places to fly from and to made a world of difference for me and completely changed my use of FS. If you look at my thread of airport diagrams elsewhere at MH, there are about 150 of them (and more I haven't uploaded yet). Almost every one is a place I flew cargo to (or from, or both) and I would never have thought to visit most of them on my own. Chalk it up to lack of imagination, laziness or whatever, CP built a new fire under me and I've never looked back.

 

AH is ten times better, with a lot of things added, such as the hiring of AI pilots and the management tasks utilizing them effectively (they are A, but not very I). All of a sudden there's a reason to own a whole stable of airplanes in your company. Add a good traffic program, real world weather, random generation of time of day for flight times and maybe an add-on ATC replacement and it's a whole new ball game. It may give you white knuckles at times, but will always leave you with a sense of accomplishment and a desire to get back to the PC for more ASAP. It's been over two years since I bought CP and I'm not tired of flying freight yet.

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

Well there you go, I guess I need to track down a copy then. Thank you very much for the advice and help!

John

[mutley 4,498]

Keep an eye out for our next section of the ATWC John, you can practice your screenshot and narration skils!

As for other adventures I am always open for ideas, maybe once I get a lot of testing work I am doing done and dusted I can spend more time on the forum driving this

Cheers

[rob16584 42]

Longbeard,

If you are a bit fed up of the same old routine, have you thought of joining a Virtual Airline at all? There you will have a big route structure to choose from along with a community of other simmers to chat with. I know the VA I fly for has been built more or less around the community and I have made many friends through it.

AH though has added another dimension to my simming, i've not flown anywhere near as much for my VA as I used to lately because i'm having a lot of fun with AH flying into lots of remote destinations and places I would never normally have gone to. My visual landing skills have improve a lot over the last couple of months! I now have a great balance of what to do, If I know I only have an hour or so to spare, I can make a short flight with my VA, if I have longer I can plan a few hours flying with AH

[Longbeard 0]

It has crossed my mind, but I fear my skills aren't good enough to join something like that just yet. Theres so much about FSX thats still a mystery to me. I'm getting better though, thanks to the great help I have received here! I would have no idea how to communicate with a MP ATC, and I would assume that a VA would utilize this?

VOR is still greek to me as well, I understand the concept, but actually putting it into practice has been a big hurdle so far. I may need to share an AC with a veteran sometime and have him break it down so a five year olod could understand it, maybe I could grasp it then.

Another thing that takes some of the fun away, is my low quality graphics. I have been doing some horse trading lately, so hopefully I'll have a better video card soon, and can get some better scenery to look at.

[allardjd 1,853]

John,

 

Here's a first step for understanding VORs.

 

Put yourself in the defualt Cessna at an airport that has a VOR on the field. EGHI and KOCF both work, but there are hundreds of others. Don't move the airplane.

 

Tune your NAV1 radio to the VOR frequency.

 

Press the NAV1 on the audio panel and listen to the Morse ID a couple of times, then shut it off - it will make you crazy.

Turn the OBI knob slowly and watch both the needle and the From/To flag on the dial. Play with it and get a feel for how the needle responds to the knob.

 

You should be able to center the needle with a TO indication (flag arrow points up) and at a setting 180 degrees from that you should be able to center the needle with a FROM indication.

 

Note the DME reading. That will give you your distance from the VOR (will be very close if you're on the same airport with it) and will generally display a ground speed and time to the VOR at your current speed. Those will both be meaningless because you're stationary.

 

One important point to remember with a VOR is that the panel indication is completely independent of your AC heading. It does not matter which way the pointy end is facing. At a given location and OBI setting the display will always be the same.

 

Play with that and then come back and give a shout when you're ready for more...

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

OK John, I just did all of that, and it did seem to make a little more sense to me. One thing I noticed, was the VOR1 Indicator is different from the VOR2 Indicator. The second one lacks some of the lines, and the needle, and it also has the little red and white strip on it. Rotating the OBI on 2 does nothing except rotate the dial.

I'm ready for more when you get a chance.

Thanks!

John

[allardjd 1,853]

Good eye...

 

The OBI 2 panel instrument is different because it lacks a glide-slope needle, which is what gives vertical guidance during an ILS approach. The localizer (horizontal element) of an ILS is the same technology as a VOR, but with a lower signal strength (thus shorter range) and narrower beam than a VOR. Thus the OBI 1 is the isntrument you use when flying an ILS approach.

 

The second needle (the horizontal one) and the second flag window on OBI1 are for the glide slope indication. Other than that the two operate the same.

 

The reason you got no response on OBI 2 is because it is hard-wired to the NAV2 radio. If you tune both NAV radios to the same station, both will behave the same.

 

Next, think of a VOR station as having 360 "spokes" or radials emanating from it, spaced one degree apart. In essence, the OBI tells you which of those spokes you are on. When you center the needle, the OBI course setting tells you which radial you're on. Bear in mind that you always lie on two radials at the same time. Each radial is two-headed. If you're directly north of the station you are on the "head" of the 360 radial and on the "tail" of the 180 radial.

 

For the next part, this is just a mind exercise. You don't need to be in an AC to follow it. Let's just consider the 360 degree radial, which emanates from the station on a north heading, but don't forget it has a tail that extends south of the station too. Here's where it gets a little confusing...

 

If you are directly north of the VOR and center the needle with the OBI at 360 you will have a FROM flag (downward pointing arrow) showing, i.e. you are on a radial that is emanating outward from the VOR, the "head" by my way of thinking.

 

Now, in your mind, place yourself directly south of the VOR. With the OBI still set on 360, the needle will still be centered, but you will now have a TO flag (upward pointing arrow) showing. You are still on the 360 radial, but now you're on the "tail" of the radial. The FROM/TO flag allows you to know the difference.

 

In the above two paragraphs, if the OBI setting were on 180 instead of 360, everything would look exactly the same except the indication of the FROM/TO flag would be reversed.

 

Keep in mind that the heading of the AC makes no difference in the indication. You can be flying directly away from a VOR with a TO indication, though that's usually not the best or most intuitive way to set it up. For instance, if you are south of the VOR flying south, but have the OBI set to 360, you will have a centered needle with a TO indication. The way to keep it straight is to think of FROM/TO as properties of the radial you are on, not as references to your course or heading.

 

If you wish to fly a course directly to a VOR station, tune it and then turn the setting knob until the needle centers with a TO flag showing. That's the direction of the station from you. It's the heading you should fly unless you need an offset for wind. If the needle deviates, you're drifting off the radial and need to adjust course in the direction the needle is pointing.

 

If you wish to fly a course directly away from a VOR station, tune it and then turn the setting knob until the needle centers with a FROM flag showing. That's the bearing along which the radial that you are on lies and following it will permit you to fly along that radial directly away from the station. Again, the deviation of the needle from center indicates you are drifting off the radial you have set on the OBI.

 

In flight, VOR signals get a little squirrely as you get close to the station because bearings and offsets are changing relatively rapidly and because the radials lie so close together. If you want to practice and play around in the air, do it about 25 to 50 miles from the VOR and you'll have plenty of time to see the effects.

 

If this isn't clear, ask questions. It's really important to have a good grip on this to go further.

[Longbeard 0]

Actually, I think you got it through my extra thick skull plate that time! Kidding of course...

That makes complete sense to me now. Except for a couple details...

One, being OBI2 ans NAV2, I don't understand the need, or intended use for those yet.

And also, are there distance limitations on the VOR signals? Meaning, let's assume I was departing from somewhere in Miami, and I was going to fly to let's say...Norfolk Virginia...or wherever really. Would I immediately tune to the Norfolk NAV1 frequency when I depart, or would I need to tune to something closer to Miami, then keep swapping VOR frequencies along the way as I make my way toward Norfolk?

If these questions are ahead of what I should be concentrating on right now, I totally understand if you want me to get to that later.

Thank you very much John!

John

[allardjd 1,853]

A second NAV radio and OBI indicator are very handy for enroute navigation operations. If you want to know where you are, tune two nearby stations, center the needles and you'll be able to tell quickly by looking at a map pretty much where you are. DME helps immensely with that too.

 

On a long flight, it is typical to have NAV1/OBI1 tuned to the next VOR and usually the Autopilot is flying from that one. NAV2/OBI2 is set to the next one and is used to "look ahead" and know when the next station is in range without disturbing the one that is actually driving the bus.

 

As for range, there are three kinds of VORs (I think) in FS. The High Altitude ones have a range of 195 miles. The medium altitude ones have a range of 60 miles. There are some low-range terminal VORs that have a range of, I think, in the 30s. The Localizers used for ILS approaches have a range of 27 miles, but you don't get the glide slope signal unless you're with about 23 miles. Also, the glide slope only comes in more or less in a 180 degree arc on the approach end of the ILS runway.

 

Don't let the altitude labels put you off, all are usable at most any reasonable altitude.

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

I think I'm starting to grasp the big picture now John, you are very good at explaining things.

Sorry for getting this thread off topic, it might be a good idea to split this thread so other could find this info more easily. Just a thought.

John, could you touch on the Glide Slope a little, I can't find much about that?

Thank you again!

John

[allardjd 1,853]

The glide slope is the vertical element of an ILS approach and is always part of a 2-element signal. You sometimes find Localizers (that's what they call an ILS VOR - the horizontal part) without an installed glide slope, but you will never find a glide slope without a localizer.

 

The glide slope is an absolute line in the sky that leads to the runway at a certain point. There is usually an associated TCH (Threshold Crossing Height). You can think of the GS as a line that extends out along the approach course toward the approach end of the ILS-equipped runway, beginning at the theoretical touch-down point and inclined upward, usually at about a 3 degree angle.

 

Sometimes the localizer is offset a few degrees from the actual runway heading, but if so it's slight and is not problematic.

 

The glide slope indication on the panel OBI consists of a flag and a needle or pointer. The flag is simply an on or off indication - it shows whether a valid glide slope signal is being received or not. The needle deflects upward if you're below the glide slope and downward if you're above it. Think of it as pointing toward the glide slope. The amount of deviation is relative to how far you are displaced from the ideal height, but it's an angular function, so gets more sensitive the closer you get.

 

An ILS is normally flown by intercepting the localizer and getting established inbound on that and flying level at a designated altitude. At that point you are below the glide slope, which is getting lower the closer to the airport you get. You will begin with a full-up deflection of the GS needle.

 

You fly level and as you get closer to the airport the GS needle "comes alive" and begins to creep down. When it is centered, you're on the glide slope and can begin to descend. In the RW a hand-flown ILS is normally flown just a little above the glide slope, so the needle would be deflected downward just a little.

 

As you motor on down the glide slope, you use the GS needle for guidance on how fast you should descend. Wind is a never-ending variable and the old stopwatch and vertical velocity method is a distant second place to a glide slope.

 

Every ILS approach has a Missed Approach Point or Decision Height associated. If you cannot see the "runway environment" by the time you reach that height, a Missed Approach is mandated and each ILS procedure has a designated set of steps for that too.

 

Are we having fun yet?

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

That makes sense, I will probably need to see this in action to really get it, but I think I understand.

And yes, I am having fun!

Thank you again John!

John

[allardjd 1,853]

John,

 

I'm glad you're enjoying this...

 

When flying an ILS, once both the localizer and the glide slope are "captured" and you've begun to descend, the optimal "sight picture" on the OBI is that the needles are crossed in the center. The trick is that you've got to maintain that for about 2 to 5 minutes (depending upon what you're flying and what the wind is doing) from the FAF to the threshold, all the while sneaking peeks out the window looking for some sign of that legally defined "runway environment".

 

A deflection of the localizer needle to one side or the other means you are drifting off the localizer.

 

A deflection of the glide slope needle upward or downward means you are off the ideal glide slope.

 

When you really think you've got it, try hand-flying one at night in the C-172 with about 3/4 mile visibility, and 20 knots of wind with gusts, at about 40 degrees across the approach course. It's not even in the same ball park with a night carrier trap in bad weather, but it will get your adreneline going.

 

John

[Longbeard 0]

I made a short flight tonight, and had at least some success with all of this info. I had a hard time figuring out exactly what frequency I needed to tune to for the arrival point, I'll have to do more research on that I suppose. Also, the arrival AP did not have a VOR on site, at least it seemed that way. I do know that there is a VOR station in our area, but it's probably 10 or so miles from the AP I was aiming at. The closer I got to the AP, the farther deflected my needle was, but I knew where the AP was anyway, because 1. I could see it on GPS, and 2. it was a couple miles from where I live.

I'm guessing that this is where the maps and charts come into play? I'm thinking I'm going to need to stock up on ink cartridges and printer paper?

[allardjd 1,853]

John,

 

Two things to help here.

 

For airport info in FS, go to Top Line Menu -> World -> Map.

 

Hit the zoom button until you can see the airport well enough to discern what's there in text. If there's a VOR on the field (not an ILS - it could have both) there will be a blue icon and some text with the frequency and ID. VORs will be some combination of squares and hexagons in blue (they come in several different flavors). NDBs are a different animal and are denoted by concentric circles made up of dots - you might see one of those, but that's a topic for another day.

 

Next click on the runway icon. It will either pop up a text description of the airport data or a small menu that will have the airport as one of the choices. If the latter, select the airport.

 

That text you see will include a runway table at the bottom. If one or more of the runways has an ILS, there will be data in the three rightmost columns with the vital information for that runway.

 

The second thing is finding an airport using an off-airport VOR. You need to look at a map or the GPS or some other reference that shows both.

 

Eyeball the heading that should be flown from the VOR to the airport.

 

Set NAV1 to the VOR frequency.

 

Set the OBI heading to the heading you determined above.

 

Fly toward the radial you've set.

 

As the needle centers, turn toward the airport and try to keep the needle in the center until you can see the airport. Where in your windshield the airport appears depends upon how good a job you did picking the correct radial.

 

John