MAD AAR - pics, tales of adventure and lessons learned!

Took the company Cessna 207 out for a spin in X-Plane with a little 56 mile delivery flight. The Carenado Cessna 207 from X-Plane 11 works great in so far as I can tell. Love this old school panel and it looked great in VR. Still some pretty bad contrast issues in X-Plane (in my opinion)…

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Flew a couple more legs today in the C-207…eventually returning back to Pullman Field. Fun plane in VR…

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Checked out the PC-6…it needed a 50 hour done on it because of all the ferry flying to Papua and back :rofl: - I think it was about $1300…not bad at all. What DID hurt was closing down the Portland (PDX) base - that cost (gulp) $355,000 to complete. I mean…I guess you can’t just push all the assets into the ocean and dump the waste into the Columbia River. Well…actually…these days you probably can… Anyway…that old adage of “Do you know how to make a million dollars in aviation?? Start with two million…” rings true.

The updated PC-6 for X-Plane 12 (from Thranda) is very nice. This is definitely better with regards to both textures and handling than the X-Plane 11 version…so I’m happy with the $23 purchase or whatever it was on sale for during Labor Day…

Flew it in VR…so the pictures won’t be very good. Really, really loving getting back to flying in the Idaho / Oregon / Washington scenery areas. There is just so much to look at and enjoy…

Love the basic panel of the PC-6…

Path took me past S84 (Cottonwood) on the way down to NI121 (Wind Ridge)…

Love how the terrain varies from farmland to almost desert-like to canyonlands…

I added some Idaho scenery/airports into Air Hauler 2 to give me some more rustic airports…(LOL)…and Wind Ridge was definitely that. I had to hunt for it a bit…and finally spotted it. One way in / one way out…

The PC-6 handled it well…job accomplished…700 lbs. of computer games delivered for $6,255… I have no idea what 700 lbs. worth of computer games looks like…

I’ll pick up a contract back out of here maybe back to Pullman. Or look around for another interesting airfield to run a trip out of. The (real) weather in the area has been so good. I’m sure that won’t last…

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I’m a bit late to the game, but is there an equivalent to Air Hauler for MSFS2024 that’s any good?

I am not sure for MSFS2024…but there may be a way to get Air Hauler for MSFS2020 working in it. I know there are other mission-type generating utilities for almost all of the big sims out there…but I’ve really enjoyed the journey with Air Hauler 2…

And for those wondering:

https://forums.x-plane.org/files/file/90138-fly-idaho/

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I always heard that it was 10 million. :crazy_face:

Wheels

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Just the other day I almost fell prey to the false logic of profitability in aviation. I have been browsing Facebook Marketplace for months…looking at airplanes for sale. It is quite discouraging. And I don’t even WANT an airplane really…except that I want to teach my son to fly…so the much lesser evil there is to just go get a block of hours from a nearby school and do that. That seems expensive. Cue my story of learning to fly at Quantico Marine Corps Station where I was able to rent a Cessna 152 for $13/hr. WET! Good grief what a bargain. Anyway…so there I am yesterday and I spy a plane that I think would be good. Expensive…well…not all that expensive really…the cost of a really nice SUV or something. And I think to myself…well, I can probably do some IFR CFI’ing in it…BFRs…probably don’t want to do basic students…but I could maybe even make some money with how much instructors are going for these days.

I was like…“stop…stop it right now…you will never make more than what you put into that airplane.” Probably.

So I’m still not convinced I’ll ever own an airplane. :rofl:

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A cheap second hand airplane that looks affordable in the current market is going to be a A&P’s wet dream. You are going to be shoveling so much money their way :wink:

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I go through the same exercise every few years. I almost bought a Cherokee once. The buyer and I were $300 apart, and I thought I had him for sure. But when I called back a few days later to accept his offer, it was gone. Really regret losing that one, like a love that you let go too easily.

But the reality is that for most of us, the purchase price is not the thing that brings you to your financial knees. T hangers are ridiculous where we live, not to mention the other fixed costs. No way to justify. Has to be an obsession. Or a dream, like teaching your kids how to fly :laughing:.

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I like NeoFly too. I don’t think it is as in depth as AH2, but I like that you can take SAR and Firefighting mission if you chose to take your career in that direction. It injects mission objects into the 3D world which is great.

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Aren’t there some add ons to NeoFly that will allow you to set up an FBO like operation?

I mostly just stick to the main missions (SAR was always my favorite), but I seem to recall other options as well.

Took the Maule out on a short contract flight. I had to overload it by about 50 pounds…which I think really makes your landing performance numbers more critical. 750 lbs. to ID11 (Southfork River Ranch)…

Upon arrival at the ranch field I set up for the approach. The scenery uses two segments of runway that are supposed to simulate the curve of the actual runway. Anyway…I found myself high and with too much energy so I went around and tried it again. Unfortunately my landing came out as “positive”…but I was pleasantly surprised I had only done 1% of damage to the aircraft (hell…that’s about my normal professional outcome…LOL…)…

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Dude, your screenshots are photographic. That Maule not only looks like it just rolled off of the assembly line, but got a hot wax job before delivery.

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I just bought it two weeks ago…I’m still rubbing it with a diaper… :rofl:

bueller4

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I’ve got an old friend in Union County who flies with CAP in his Cherokee. I believe he’s planning on teaching his boys to fly as well when they’re a bit older, and I think he does intro flights for CAP.

I’d be happy to introduce y’all if you’d like, especially since there’s going to be more travel towards your neck of the woods next year.

Thought it was time to fire up Mudspike Air Delivery and at least see if there are mice in the hangar… Took a little tweaking to get Air Hauler 2 doing the correct things with my X-Plane 12 migrated install..but it is working…

Short repositioning flight in the Maule…flying in 2D today while I was working on some settings…

Headed down to Cottonwood, Idaho (S84) to position for a cargo run…

Love the VSkyLabs M-7…it is just such a pleasure to fly…

Also did some tweaking to my X-Plane 12 files since my Air Hauler 2 company also has an MD-82 in the fleet. Went in and applied Ezo21’s 4K texture rework..definitely makes the cockpit better. I have the Rotate MD-80 for XP11…probably need to buy the new version for XP12..but the Laminar MD-82 is quite with just enough button pushing…

Higher res textures evident on the overhead and throttle quadrant…

Finally got the right sequence of buttons and bleeds and valves…

Running $150,000 worth of Blu-Rays (!!) and some cosmetics to Bremerton, WA about 230 miles to the west…

Fun old school green needle navigation..VOR to VOR…

Using real world weather..surprised at how nice the Pacific NW is..I’ve noticed it has been that way for weeks during all these World Cup games. Nice view of Rainier…

Decided on the ILS 20 in Bremerton so went up north a bit to give a good cut at it..flying over Paine Field and all the Boeing lined up…

Tracked the ILS down to a “GOOD” landing. Cargo run accomplished…

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After this recent extended vacation how did the old balance sheet shake out? The company still running in the black or did your AI pilots run the company into the red a few hundred mil? :face_with_peeking_eye:

Wheels

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I’ve made the full switch to MSFS mainly because I do love me some couch. But there is no question that once you get X-Plane dialed in visually, nothing else can touch it. I kinda want to fire it up just to do NDB approaches in the DC-3. Glad to see MAD is still in business. It’s the Sun Country of virtual cargo.

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