Scarlett begged for her job. I’m running a business here however.
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Don’t you know you’d have more options with her as a pilot. Now you’re relegated to whatever they’ll give you. Tsk tsk.
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Next up is a short hop from 24MT (Haggerty) down to U53 (Henry’s Lake)…most definitely a high country landing strip. Looks like we are delivering ice. Expensive ice. Carved fresh from a glacier. Or something.
You have to pay attention to the density altitude out here. Short strips, heavy weights, and high temps mean long takeoff rolls and make sure you can outclimb the trees at the ends of these smaller strips…
As well, you need to plan your climb over the high ten and eleven thousand foot ridges well in advance or you might not have the oomph to make it over them…
Dropping over the ridge over Hebgen Lake where we start our descent toward Targhee Pass, which will lead us to the banks of Henrys Lake…
This dirt strip is a bit easier to pick out…but use the trick that most seasoned pilots and project a line out from the runway and pick an easy to spot geographic feature or building or road to use as a reference point to turn over to line up on the final…
One load of ice delivered…! I should have brought some Yeti coolers and marked them up too!
Can’t ask for much better weather. The visibility has been kind of hazy…but otherwise, fantastic conditions!
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Dusts off the old CRP-5…
Scratches head…
How do you use this thing again???
I think they are popular to use as aviation nostalgia displays in trendy FBOs…
Back in the saddle this morning. My cockpit is a bit stinky this morning as I take 405 lbs. of sheep from U53 down to Jackson Hole, Wyoming (KJAC). Jackson Hole is one of the major airports in the area and is nestled in some really rugged terrain. I’ll probably pick up the KJAC ORBX airport during the next ORBX sale since I’ll be flying around the area…I mean check it out:
My leg is short…just 67 miles, but pays out $3,240…so a nice rate per mile…
I love the cloud shadows in P3D…
The area north of Jackson Hole is just wilderness everywhere…
I have my second VOR set to intercept the 360 degree radial off Jackson Hole to avoid the super high terrain just west and northwest of the field. I intercept and start my turn over Jackson Lake and start to track the localizer down to the airport…
Down and in…no idea why C-17s are parked at the terminal…
ORBX has the FBO crew car modeling just right…they are often beaters like that…!
I drop off the sheep…get paid, and take another contract from an airport about 12 miles south of Jackson Hole (WY31) so I’ll have to reposition down there to pick up the seafood…
Departing Jackson Hole…
A quick hop of only 12 miles or so…it is easy to fly by reference to the VFR sectional chart because ORBX has included features like this ski area which is depicted on the sectional…and of course the terrain, roads, and rivers match up…
The airport sort of springs up on me…and I do a hasty and ugly approach and I hit kind of hard. It is actually the first time I’ve damaged an airplane in Air Hauler and I see my airframe health has gone from 100% to 92%…damn…that’ll teach me!
Landing performance HARD - and a VSI of -600 fpm…
Might have to re-hire Scarlett after all…
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LOL maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have AH2 in xplane. 600 fpm… done a few of those… .just a few.
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I’m really enjoying this thread, and if there was something like Air Hauler in x-plane I would be the first in the queue to get it, but it would have to have realistic missions. Otherwise things like this would bother me to the point of giving up. I mean who would pay $3200 odd to transport 4 or 5 sheep just 67 miles? That’s a farmer that’ll be out of business come next spring. Way to kill the immersion!
Any more of those and you’ll want to transition to one of these…
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Well, in the “game’s” defense - you wouldn’t even really be able to have a product that emulated general aviation revenue jobs because they almost don’t exist anymore. The types of missions (moving seafood and sheep) are really just there to give you something to do rather than nothing to do. If they didn’t provide such unrealistic cargo runs, there literally would be no realistic alternative. It is rather the same as playing GTA-V and earning enough money by killing people to earn yourself a Ferrari - not realistic, but fun enough.
For me - even though the economy is fake, it is about the flying, the challenging airstrips, and the career building within that might someday get me out of this single engine piston. It is really just a game with some simulation elements in it that you can make as realistic (real weather, tough airports) or unrealistic (easy flight model / no damage / no weather) as you like.
As far as I know…the original Air Hauler for X-Plane does work with XP11 - but there are some quirks to it and it isn’t as full featured as AH2. And yes, you’ll be moving shrimp and cleaning supplies from Point A to Point B. Something with an airline passenger motif might work a bit better for realism (maybe?)…
Loaded up with 300+ lbs. of seafood at WY31 and headed for KAFO. Had an interesting event…WY31 is a short, 1,800’ dirt runway at an elevation of 6,075’. I started my takeoff run…realized I wasn’t fully leaned out and had to abort the takeoff because my airspeed just wasn’t coming off the peg…!
Ran back up the hill, turned around, full power, leaned, released the brakes…and just barely squeaked though a gap in the trees at minimum controllable airspeed…! Next time, I’ll offload fuel to lighten up even more…but man, this density altitude is something else!
I did an IFR flight plan (I Follow Roads) and kept in the valleys, following the Snake River south until it turned west and hit the Palisades Reservoir…
Leaving the Jackson Hole valley behind…
Coming up on the Palisades Reservoir…
A left turn to the south to follow the river plain all the way down to Afton…with a straight in approach…
Unloading and contemplating my next mission…!
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Maules are very cool, and proudly made in the state of Georgia!
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Do you have any more info on that? I was looking for info when I got XP-11 but could only find people saying it won’t work.
Edit - never mind, found this:
and that should be enough to get it going.
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Next up is a dusk flight - picking up a route out of Afton (KAFO) all the way down to Salt Lake City (KSLC) - definitely getting outside of the bounds of my normal route area. It is nice that you can click on the current airport you are at and Air Hauler will list all the routes outbound from that field, so you can sort of plan to make some revenue as you head back toward your base. Of course, occasionally you’ll have to fly a dead leg to find a route. This time though, we are on a contract for $3,050 for the 124nm flight down to KSLC…
See you later Afton…
A slow, VFR climb up the high terrain to near 10,000’ just south of the field…
The setting sun…
I must say that Active Sky is phenomenally good. Here is the actual radar picture from last night around Salt Lake City, and the Active Sky depiction. Quite good in the positioning if not the intensity…
Throughout my flight southbound, the lightning popped and sizzled in the clouds east of my route…it was really, really cool looking…
Cresting the high ridge and dropping into the Salt Lake City valley…
The thunderstorms stayed just sooutheast of the field but the turbulence and unstable air were bouncing the plane around quite a bit…
Lining up for the easternmost runway that leads down to the GA ramp…
The combo of Active Sky and P3D v4 is incredible…when there would be a close bolt of lighting or embedded lighting, the screen flares up bright and the P3D HDR kicks in, so in the few seconds after the bolt, the lights get a bit dimmer and then they fade back up to the normal intensity. It is really, really well done and realistic feeling…
Food delivered and ready to search for a route that will get me back up toward my home base…
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Uh-oh…this is why you should probably check the specifics before accepting a contract. Currently enroute to 1ID9 on a contract and looked up the details…
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So, climb, flare and land at the time it is! 
Thanks to your propaganda mission I am now considering getting AH 1 and making it work in XP 10 
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Oh dear…
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Well, that went well - right up until I ran out of runway. I only just barely rolled off the end of the uphill end…but it was enough to tip me over and damage my aircraft…
That little ding cost me another 5% in damage - bringing me down to 86%…shoot!
Now I gotta figure out how to get this cargo off this tiny strip. I might put minimum fuel - just enough to hop down the mountain to Pocatello about 10 miles away. Good news is the 14 degree downslope might get me enough speed to get out of there…maybe… If not, I’ll have to hire Scarlett to come back and do the serious aviatrix stuff…
I actually couldn’t even find the airfield until I used the Tower view to find myself in the sky and work backwards to where the field is…wow…one of the most butt clenching approaches I’ve ever flown in a sim…kind of like a PNG Bush airstrip!
I wonder if disabling Airport Elevation Correction (AEC) in the FTX Global Vector Configuration Tool would have helped sort that field out. I know that I have to do it to use the Orbx Freeware NA & SA airport KLZU, which is where I did my initial flight training. It’s an elevation mess otherwise.
Well…the landing strip portion of the field was actually not a problem (it didn’t have any jaggies in it) - I just overran it. 400’ was just too much of an ask…but I could have been a touch slower (maybe 4 or 5 knots) and I might have managed it. I’d be curious to know exactly what kind of aircraft calls that base home…