Thanks! I probably won’t fly it today. But if you can post it, I will try tomorrow. Will I see it in the VA Cargo Job tab?
Yep, there now. Expires in 2+ days.
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Yeah - those commodities are a bit of a cheat, but on the other hand, given they have chosen to have a real time rolling fixed costs, it’s kind of nice to be able to cash up a couple months worth of base rental in a weekend if you’re unsure when you get to fly next / need to make up for lost time.
I did my $30k net run with medicine. 750 lbs at 43 profit/unit less fuel and a hard landing 
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it wouldn’t be so much of a cheat if there was actually a market, instead of … whatever it is that’s there.
I try to only use them when repositioning between jobs (ie. there’s no cargo job at my location or on the way back).
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That’s exactly what I find myself doing. I could use the market but it feels like a cheat because I could rack-up so much money with short flights. It feels “too easy” and I’m in it for the long haul. So if I don’t have another cargo job out of the airport I delivered into and the next job is a ways away, I’ve been experimenting with finding some “local” commodities in that area that will take me in the direction of my next job to just augment my income a bit.
I’ve heard of others doing something similar with ad-hoc passenger flights. But my Skyhawk is just too small to really turn a profit that way. Between the cost of refitting from cargo to passenger, the lower price of tickets, and the few spaces for passengers, I don’t think I’d even really turn a profit at all on the flight.
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Yep, exactly. I’m thinking it’ll be different once I’m around the 600k mark and have a bigger plane. Be easier to get back to that level and add another one the AI can fly, and then again, and add bases, and then bigger… once you get past the 172 level (or the cub/piper/comanche) into tier 2, it should go a little faster and feel a little more rewarding. At least for me. Those who like flying that slow… power to you 
I took my eclipse for a spin tonight and wowee. What a bird. I gotta RTFM because the gps didn’t work well at all (couldn’t select any navaids or whatnot… I’m assuming its the gsn430 install I didn’t bother with) but wow. Once I figured out how to get it to follow nav1 … landing that bird at KEAT… bit of a firm touchdown but so much fun. Felt great manually following (ahahaha I butchered it but whatever) the RNAV to rwy30 along that river. Total pleasure flight just to get used to it, and what a treat. I’m going to enjoy doing passenger jobs in that thing, even with the limited number of seats. So fun to climb at like 4000fpm haha.
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I can appreciate the desire to “move up in the world” - it is tugging me also.
But then I remind myself to view this through a different lens: I only need to make $17k a month to make ends meet and I have $200k in the bank, so there is no rush to “keep up the churn”. I only have the WA scenery so far so being local is good from that point of view. The Cub also has limited ability to take both fuel and payload so I have a real reason to run fuel endurance calculations with the e6b while enroute. I needed to get across the Cascade Range to the coastal side with 8.7 gallons of fuel and a decent headwind - the need to calculate ground speed and remaining time at the halfway fix was very real.
I guess what I’m saying is, when I have the need for speed, I’ve got plenty of jets collecting dust over at DCS 
It’s all virtual dollars and NMs so I’m decidedly taking my time and trying to “smell the flowers”.
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Yeah. I am trying to resist moving on to a new airplane and going too deeply into debt. I wanted to pay off what I owed but it is hard to resist. In my case, I am working from home this week and it is really easy to get an AI pilot going back and forth on one of the lucrative routes every hour and a half. I really wish that there was a little more to the commodities market. There is too much supply in some cases and demand doesn’t change. Granted, that would be a complicated system to code up, for sure. I am going to try to be patient and move back to the missions at KEAT but I have been paying my ‘taxes’ in to MAD on the profits that I have been making.
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Haha…the temptation of bigger, faster, more load. Heck, I think my first go with AH2 for P3D I had picked a plane with no autopilot either. Talk about a grind. Once you get to that coveted 40 overall REP though, you can really set your heart on a bigger plane with the loan or lease options. I still haven’t decided what I’ll eventually upgrade to. I might want to make a baby step and have that Cessna 185 for a bit because I love it so much. The Husky is great fun, but yeah…slow boat…
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A little bit. But I really enjoy the AirFoilLabs walk around, but the 172 is … too small/slow. The REP/Caranado Cessna T210 is a nice step up … but after flying a GA aircraft for the months it took me to complete that air race to Australia, I am a little bored with the systems.
I know. I can always find an excuse but I have the Kodiak, PC-6 and DHC-3 sitting there waiting to be used, let alone getting up to the C-47 that I want to get in the near future.
I have to say though, that the commodity system is … not fun. It is too easy to make a ton of money. I like the jobs/mission system because it takes to location out of my hands somewhat and forces me to plan trips to places that would likely never go. So I am heading back to KEAT, setting up an AI PAX route to keep some cash flowing in to cover at least some of those expenses … and settling back to flying missions/jobs.
I am also going to lease the Kodiak. I didn’t realize it before reading the manual, but I was wary of ‘renting’ an aircraft as that might be lost money spend on paying the rent. Instead, if contributes to a buyout you can do of the aircraft … so I feel like I am working my way up to owning it.
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I agree. And it makes you look at the return options to see if anything is nearby…and the way my missions are set up (small airfields) I have to be very careful not to accept a trip where I can’t get in. Sometimes it’s fun to dabble at the margins of what is possible though… 
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I have a TBM at EAT that I’m willing to donate to MAD, but I don’t want to ruffle any feathers… something about ill-gotten gains.
My highly skilled pilots (goons) have made many profitable trips procuring (questionable) quality china and selling them for a small (huge) profit.
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I’m fine with it since it will allow owners of the TBM that want to mix it up and fly something more complicated the ability to do that without the grind. It would be great if the company can fit all kinds of flying styles. Those of us that are doing the stepping-stones approach can simply fly the Cessna 172 until enough REP and money is made to take out a loan to buy another aircraft that was officially “earned” as it were.
I actually don’t even know how you transfer a plane to the VA…
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It’s in your offline fleet menu, looks like I’ll need the “transfer aircraft” permission before I can transfer it though.
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I’ll have to finish this last leg to get into the VA admin page. Be about an hour…
Got it…I ticked that box and you should be able to do that. MAD thanks you immensely! Now I gotta go buy the TBM…LOL…
Transferred! Currently it’s loaded with just under 50% fuel, that gives it around a 1,000nm range and 1,800 lbs cargo capacity.
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Woot…I see the TBM in the VA Fleet page. Aircraft condition is 100 - who will be the first to ding it…?
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