Flight Following and Short AAR Thread

Yeah…I’m hopeful they will add that GA traffic - they have talked about it. Their previous stuff (Traffic 360) for P3D had plenty of GA stuff…so I hope they are still reaching for that goal.

I wonder if Pilot Edge would help with some ATC stuff as far as immersion.

Thanks. Not so much interested in pilotedge myself. Subscription based and I just prefer not to mess up other people’s days :slightly_smiling_face:

Pilot2atc may need another look, though I think the only add-on it reads is world traffic?

Yeah, I’m not too interested in Pilot Edge either. I’d rather we have a good ATC add-on that actually functions well in the single player realm.

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That’s more than I’ve seen with XP11, ATC-wise. Why I never mess with it anymore. Maybe they’s tweaked something, recently?

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My understanding it that PE hires retired ATC’ers, or those that, apparently, can’t get enough on the their regular shifts. Just what I read somewhere. And they seem to only be at certain locations, SOCAL being the main one. Been a while though since I looked at it.

Sure seems like that would be easy to do; match acft with runyway/airport size and generate them randomly. I mean, how would you know that a given GA flight from KABC to KDEF wasn’t legit? Wouldn’t matter to me.

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Alright - flew my first revenue flight for MAD-FSE. I’m on call tonight, so I picked a short one. Thanks to @Gunnyhighway and @Sine_Nomine (and @EightBall) I was able to rent the Cessna Caravan at ID88 and do a quick flight to ID68 and 08ID about 80 nm altogether. With @NEVO’s help I was able to figure out how to load multiple passengers…I think I took five altogether - 2 to 08ID and 3 to ID68.

The plane already came with fuel onboard…total value of the assignments was $3,852 (with an aircraft distance bonus of $250…no idea what that is).

Looks like it did log it in to the system though - so the plug-in and communication with the FSE website worked!

Finding ID68 was easy and it was a nice runway. Finding 08ID, which was not in my GPS database, did require a tiny bit of searching but it is right next to a lake which was a great reference point to pick out the strip.

Heading out of ID88…

Final to ID68…

Leaving ID68…

A bit after takeoff, I got a battery overheat / battery hot annunciator. I found this interesting and was surprised Carenado or Thranda or whoever did the conversion modeled it. At the end of the first leg, I parked on the runway, shut off the engine, but left the avionics and other stuff on while I contemplated the FSE menu. I sat there for maybe 6 or 8 minutes…which was apparently enough to draw down the battery.

When I went to start…I did notice it started kind of hot (a telltale of a weak battery) but didn’t think much of it. Right after takeoff, I got the hot battery warnings. I didn’t have a checklist handy, but in the Citation and King Airs you’d typically isolate the battery from the charging source (the generator), so I selected battery off. I still had my avionics, but lost the autopilot/flight directory - which might be accurate if only the battery bus runs either the AC or DC systems. I don’t know if Carenado actually thought that our or what…but turning the battery off did put the HOT lights out. Normally, you might be able to let it cool down, then put the battery back on and let it take a charge again. It is an abnormal though…and you’d be better off landing immediately lest the battery suffer a thermal runaway and burn through the wing (in the King Air) or wherever it is located in the Caravan.

Anyway - I found that interesting…

Found the airstrip buried near a road…and the Caravan does a great job of landing and stopping using reverse…

Great flight.

So now does the Caravan stay where I parked it or should I reposition it? Or does someone else just look for loads out of the last airport?

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Every plane has a homebase. If the bonus is $250, you’ll have to pay $250 for every 100nm you fly it away from the homebase, or you get paid $250 for every 100nm you fly it towards its homebase. You can see it as a little insurance nobody rents that plane to do their christmas flight and your plane ends up on christmas island. If you rent a plane from someone else it might be worth checking, since you may make an extra buck or see a cut in your margins depending on the bonus. On the website you see a vector for the direction of the homebase. If there is no vector, the plane is already at its homebase.

It’ll stay there. Someone else can now pick it up to do jobs with it. You don’t have to bring it home after every flight.

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I think the Uber ride out of Podunk, Idaho is going to cost me more than the flight earnings… :rofl:

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Driving the Bush 172 from KEAT to WN26 just north of Pullman. That will put the 172 over there if anyone wants to use it in the morning. If I have a chance, I’ll reposition it to Pullman after I drop off the sodas.

Since my company base is KEAT - I probably won’t be able to populate trips out of KPUW unless I open my own company (MAC) a second base there (I already tried to do that, but it said I have to have a pilot there in order to do so…so maybe that pilot can be me…)…

I think that was @Sryan who helped you out. Definitely took me some time too to figure out that this is possible.

yeah, lol can imagine :smile:
Like that 206 I fly in FSE from Kansas to West coast where it has its home base.

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Our Bush 172 matches the color of western Washington…

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Alright - the MAD Bush 172 (AH) is in Pullman/Moscow (KPUW)…in one piece after a sketchy landing at Schoepflin…I thought I might tear something up there with the lack of a real runway…

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I’m making my way back from Trail, BC (CAD4) with a cargoful of seafood. Had to do a 130NM detour to find a cargo job that takes me back to KEAT, but that’s okay.

Owhi Lake and Colville Reservation were where I hoped they would be.

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Bearhedge, what’s the cargo capacity of that Super Cub? Nice looking bird.

I’ve booked out the Bush 172 for a short flight - $5000 in narcotics to 25U from Pullman. Looks like a neat airport (25U)…

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Beautiful landscapes down here along the Snake River south of Lewiston…

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Whew…Memaloose (25U) is just stunning…just don’t be hot on landing! Runway slopes uphill to the south…and it is plenty long, but you wouldn’t want to go off that cliff…

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I’ll mention again that I think it’s ridiculous that flights flown for the VA don’t count as individual REP.

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What is also ridiculous, but in a good way, is the commodities trading system. Thank you @Sine_Nomine for pointing this out. At this rate I’ll have the DC-3 paid off soon and maybe I’ll donate it to MAD. Now, having said that, it is also a bit of a cheat. Making $40,000 by flying 1000lbs of China from Boeing Field to Paine (a flight of maybe 30 miles) is way to far into the realm of fantasy. In fact, I wouldn’t even have needed the DC-3. The flight could have taken place in the Bush 172 just running back and forth. By the end of the day, MAD would have a million-plus in the bank.

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