That’s good news, and also interesting that they will support FSW.
It seems to me they are being very careful NOT to commit to supporting either platform. A good bit of PR wording there 
So a bit of a shakeup at MAC…it seems that Norway has revoked my work visa…something, something, politics, politics, something…so…we are moving the company! And this is not a cheap endeavor I’m finding out…
To close my base an ENSO is costing me $20,000 (gulp)…
After searching far and wide for a new base in the States, I settled on an obvious choice: Mud Lake (1U2), Idaho! It doesn’t meet all my criteria, but it met enough…
I was looking for an affordable base (I was hoping for a startup cost of <=$20,000) but after browsing around, I decided to spend the $30,000 for our namesake base.
I also wanted a base in some rugged terrain, to provide for some challenging contracts, and one that would use the ORBX regions I have installed. The weather in Southern California is too good, so I picked Idaho to capitalize on the ORBX FTX Central Rockies area…along with the Northern Rockies and PNW areas. Mud Lake is located a bit west of Idaho Falls…
The other requirements were for runway lights and an instrument approach - I got the first, but not the second. That said though, I think I can built a “home-made” approach to the airport using the Dubois or Idaho Falls VOR (shhh…don’t tell the FAA)…
The runway is only 3,300’ and at an elevation of 4,794’ - so density altitude is definitely going to a factor, and it will also limit the size of aircraft I can operate there. I hope to build up enough reputation and money to eventually take out a loan and move to one of the more well equipped ORBX airports (they are expensive to open!)…
The airport itself sits in a plain, but there are high mountains and rugged terrain just a few minutes flight away…so I’m going to be interested to see how the weather and terrain conspire to make flying a challenge here.
Fairly austere airport - but that’s what makes it cheap!
Surrounding area terrain…
Now, I have another problem though - my only company aircraft (my Maule) is still in Norway! I briefly (very briefly) considered flying it to my new base…uh…maybe not…
So I’m going to try something with Air Hauler I haven’t tried - hiring a pilot to fly the aircraft back for me. Welcome aboard Scarlett (I have a vision of what she looks like in my own mind)…
Don’t tell Scarlett, but the plan is to fire her after the delivery is complete…(please don’t post that on social media…). I’m not actually sure how this will work, but when I put in a travel request to send Scarlett to Norway, it put in the request, and says she should arrive there by 7PM tonight. The game tracks in real time, so there isn’t anything I can do to speed that up. Once she is there, I’ll see about assigning her to fly the plane to Idaho. I have no idea if it will actually take as long as it should in real life (probably a couple of days minimum) or how much it will cost.
I thought about selling the airplane…but I can only get $90,000 for it, and to buy a new one in Idaho would cost somewhere around $168,000! Man…the resell market is brutal…!
So, for now I’m in a holding pattern until Scarlett arrives in Norway at 7PM this evening. I might even give her some duty rest before making her don her survival suit for the flight across the pond. She said this is her survival suit…who am I to argue? She might have to fend off polar bears or something…
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And you plan to fire her after the trip? That might not be the wisest decision…
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Did I mention my new office has this kind of glass installed?
Hmm…actually, I see that I could pick up a used Maule in Wilmington, NC right now off the User Used Market in Air Hauler for just $87,720…I’m unsure of the 52% condition though…I wonder how much it takes to bring it up to 100%…questions, questions… Might turn out to be cheaper than ferrying the Maule from Norway…
Ugh it’s brutal they won’t make this for xplane
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This looks really good. If anything will get me into one of the many iterations of FSX, then this is it.
Do me a favour @BeachAV8R get some money to try out some A2A aircraft with Accusim Paweeeeeeeeease. Especially the connie, but they have smaller ones on the list to
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Yeah…I tell ya’ what…I’m really liking P3D v4. It really feels pretty slick and is definitely THE version to have these days. Of course, you have to be careful because not all add ons are compatible with it and you also have to check to see if your add ons will ever get supported. So there is that consideration. I’m glad I bought it though. I’ll bet I’ve spent more time flying P3D v4 already than P3D v3 (I should have skipped that version and only bought 2 and 4)…
OK then…Scarlett has arrived at ENSD - and is now on the brutal ferry flight - 32 hours of flying…LOL…
So Scarlett arrived at Mud Lake (1U2) after 30-some hours of flying. Poor thing…I might give her the weekend to relax before firing her on Monday. She did, however, do a fantastic job on the ferry flight. I see no damage on the aircraft, although the flight time counts against the aircraft maintenance schedule…so I’m down to 15.4 hours left until a Phase A (50 hour) check. Hopefully those are not expensive. I had read on the Air Hauler forums that sometimes AI ferry flights can damage the aircraft, and it can take tens of thousands of dollars to repair them…so I’m very relieved that we got the Maule here safely…
I’ve already set my preferences for relatively short range flights to small airports…and the jobs board has populated…
For my first flight - I elect a straight-forward 80nm flight from Mud Lake to KDLN - a mid-sized airport that I won’t have to struggle with finding or getting into as I learn the local area. Looks like a load of 261 lbs. of DVDs…apparently the broadband in rural Idaho/Montana doesn’t allow for much Netflix streaming…
Loaded up and ready to go…Active Sky treats me to a nice real weather condition of clear skies, but a good bit of haze. Happy to not be hard IFR on my first local area flight…
Good Lord Almighty…the density altitude here is a killer! The near 5,000’ elevation strip means long ground runs, anemic performance, and a requirement to lean, lean, lean all the time…
Mud Lake sits in a relatively flat area of Idaho with lots of agriculture…but the mountains ramp up quickly to 10,000’…so a slow climb/stagger up to altitude is required…
Garfield Mountain is the first obstacle just north of Mud Lake - rising up to 10,961’…and the Maule struggles to get up to altitude…
Over the high terrain at the Idaho / Montana border and into a valley near Dell and Lima, Montana…
One more ridge just short of Dillon up to 9,500’ or so then we drop down into the airport at 5,245’. Nice that a VOR is on the field to keep navigation easy. The field has VOR/DME and GPS approaches…so I should keep that in mind if weather gets ugly and I’m looking for a route to fly…
Success…!
47 minutes of flying and a couple thousand dollars in the bank…now to grind out some more. I need to remove the skis from the Maule and get the Mudspike repaint back on it. I wish there was a mod to add a cargo pod and tundra tires to make it cooler looking…LOL…
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Figured out a way to remove my skis without having to sell / rebuy the aircraft (I just renamed the wheel version to the ski version in my SimObjects directory)…
So I went ahead and fired Scarlett…but it’s nice to see that Air Hauler penalizes you by making you pay out some severance…
I managed to get the skis removed and restored my Mudspike Air Cargo livery…so I’m back in business. This afternoon it was a quick jump from Dillon over to a tiny dirt strip outside of Bozeman called Haggerty…
Climbing out of Dillon to the east we’ll have to once again claw our way up to around 11,000’ to cross high terrain on the route…
This place is going to get interesting once the weather (and winter) settle in…!
Arriving south of Bozeman, I had trouble locating the strip…but finally pinned it down (right behind me here)…
On the base leg to land to the north…
Delivery complete!
So it was nice to see that even though my balance sheet took a hit from a couple months of inactivity (I was still having to pay base rental fees even though I wasn’t flying) and I also took a hit for closing and opening a new base, my company cash is doing OK.
More importantly though - my Reputation rating did not take much of a hit - I really need to get it all the way up to 40 so that I can consider leasing a bigger airplane and get a loan from the bank. The little hiccup toward the end - that is a 1 point deduction for firing Scarlett - so that is good to see that you can’t just do that without paying the price.
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Were your doors open? Looks like it but I’m on my phone.
LOL…no…but I can see why it looks like that! The Maule has clear (acrylic?) doors in the back…
That’s some great looking scenery. In other news, what you didn’t know is that Scarlett is a Marine Reserve pilot just selected for F-35B flight training 
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I’m afraid my pilots would unionize and strike during the Christmas cargo rush. I’m pretty sure Scarlett would be the ALPA rep…
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I’ll give you this, if I get to choose between her and @BeachAV8R- I already know who to follow…
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Treason for a reason. Hard to argue with that.
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