Mudspike Air Cargo

Mudspike Air Cargo is not dead…! Do not believe the rumors you may have read. :smile:

Air Hauler 2 recently left Early Access and I did import my AH2 company into the release version. It has, however, been almost a year since I did a cargo run. And I have a very big backlog of aircraft lease and airbase lease payments that have been accumulating since then. They don’t stop just because YOU stop, they continue to accrue.

The long and short of it - MAC company cash is down to $128,485 from a high of around 400K in early 2018. That $9,190 monthly overhead is a real deal when multiplied over 12 months. I probably should have sold off the aircraft or terminated the lease and shut down the base, but I always did intend to return.

I was interested in testing out Air Hauler 2 with the HP Reverb to see if it was possible to get a seamless experience in VR - to my great surprise, it works fine! Better than fine actually…it is fantastic! All screens taken through the Reverb lens…

My lease is still running for my awesome little Quest Kodiak with the RealityXP GTN750 installed. So I picked up a little test run up to KPDT out of my home base of Longview Ranch…

The GTN750 is an impressive unit. We have one in our Citation Ultra and I love it. In VR, it is superb because it uses so many point and clicks to quickly access data. I really like the fact you can pull up airfield data, and then just click it to load stuff life frequencies into your NAV/COM - it makes tuning the AWOS and tower really quick and easy… Resolution in the Reverb is fantastic and performance in P3D is good. I might need to tweak my graphics settings a bit more to find that just right mix of graphics and performance.

The only thing I noticed was that the Air Hauler 2 messages about mission status don’t appear in VR - they appear on a ribbon on the 2D screen, but I just read something about a SHIFT-CTRL F1 mission text box or something - so I’ll explore that. But MAC is back in business!

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Give me AH2 for XP11 and I’ll be in hog heaven.

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At least you got back before all the funds were dried up. :+1:

Wheels

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While very much a “someone mentioned that someone said” type comment (I think I may have read it here actually) but it could be that we will get it eventually - the developer has supposedly said on the AH2 beta forums this January that he is considering an XP11 release within 2019.

Take my money already!

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Back in the air again with Air Hauler 2 - gotta dig myself out of this financial hole! Picked up a short 110nm flight out of my last stopping point (KPDT) up to a tiny strip 3WA2. The load is 2,517 lbs. of mail…with a nice payoff of $22,653.

Air Hauler 2, P3D v4, and the HP Reverb are so awesome together. This is where simming is going. The presence of being able to look around in 3D and see everything is great…and finally the Reverb offers a resolution that makes the cockpits totally usable. I’m going to be doing a lot of this (and even more when we get Air Hauler in X-Plane!)…

This particular airport wasn’t in the RealityXP GTN database for some reason. I think some of the PNW airports have been renamed perhaps, but it is really easy to go online, find the LAT/LON and it takes about 20 seconds to punch those into the RXP GTN and make a custom airport waypoint.

On short final into this little 2,000’ gravel strip…

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And there I was thinking you were stuck in Baghdad! :wink:

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image

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Another $12,000 in the MAC coffers with a delivery of a couple thousand pounds of coffee back to our home base in Longview Ranch…we sampled the product and now we are ready to fly 36 hours straight… Flew in 2D tonight because we have company over and I didn’t want to look completely nerdy. But mostly nerdy.

image

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I haven’t looked at it. I’ll poke around with it.

So during my internet down time, I spent some time checking out Air Hauler 2 and seeing what changes I could make. While I was idle for six months or so, I lost a lot of money on aircraft loan repayments and base fees, but with just a bit of flying over the week I managed to claw back some of that.

But I was itching for change. I love my base at Longview Ranch (OG39) but it lacks an instrument approach, and is an admittedly sketchy area when the weather is low. So I went ahead and took the hit on closing OG39.

AH-006

My trusty Kodiak was also starting to wear on me a bit. It is a pretty old Lionheart model, and I wanted to fly something a bit newer, so I sold the Kodiak which I had bought outright with a bank loan, took out an even bigger loan (hey…welcome to aviation!) and purchased a Grand Caravan Cargomaster. It will be able to haul a thousand pounds more gear, has a better cockpit, better flight model, and better engine model. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to get my GTN 750 mounted in the panel though.

AH-007

AH-009

I also opened a base at KSFF - Spokane / Felts Field. It has multiple approach types, bigger runways, but costs a fair bit more in monthly costs and opening costs (hey, again, welcome to aviation!). With the increased cargo capacity of the Caravan, I’m confident I can make the payments and make some money…hopefully.

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All this spending has put me in the hole though…I’m $40,000 in the red (hey…welcome to aviation!)… Fortunately my new plane came with full tanks of fuel or I’d be unable to start flying…haha…

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New route structures out of Spokane are nice because they go into some of the challenging fields in Idaho and some wilderness areas. I love those types of runways! The old OG39 routes will fall out of the map as the routes expire…

Started picking up contracts - which are much heavier and provide more income per flight than the ones I was able to do with the Kodiak. The max I could make with the Kodiak were around 12-15K, whereas some of the Caravan loads can be up to $30-$35K…

Chipping away at my loss - one more flight and I’ll be back in the black…

AH-015

Leaving OG39 for the last time in the new Caravan…

Taking my Caravan checkride since I bought a new type of airplane…

First cargo run out of KSFF…

The Caravan looks good in VR, but not great since Carenado didn’t use 3D instruments in the panel. Not a big deal (the Kodiak has the same problem), but the overall cockpit experience is way better (except for the default Garmin GPS)…

Flying into some tricky fields down in Idaho…!

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When you book a contract that you don’t realize exceeds the load capacity of your aircraft…meaning you have to go back to the originating airport again to finish the load…

damn1

And when you only have four hours to fulfill the contract…

sweat1

But we managed it. Also managed a back-load to the vicinity of the originating airport that made us 18K…which combined with the original contract puts us back in black baby!!

AH-024

AH-025

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I’m really happy that MAC’s back in business! I love reading about the combination of profits, losses, the weather and the challenging flying. It’s the perfect mix for a sim-loving banker :joy:

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I’m sure you are frowning at my jumping around and not “staying the course” :smile: Variety is the spice of life though. I think this Caravan can keep me happy for a few months while I build up some cash to pay off the loans (or upgrade to something bigger and go further into debt…welcome to aviation…haha…the theme of this thread).

Bad news though - I did have a rough landing on one of those back-country fields. Only minor damage though…took my plane status from 100% to 94% I think. So eventually that will need to be repaired…

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Ah, I’m the same, no frowning here!

I’ve split my time between the trainer comparison, the Huey odyssey (currently on hiatus) and the air race, depending what I feel excited about…unlike work, where we have to ‘get on with it’ regardless of how we feel on the day, we have freedom over our hobbies, so who cares about a year’s pause here or there :slight_smile:

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I’m playing the long con. Building up my Air Hauler capability until I can make it to Australia… :rofl:

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There is no rush… you could even make Melbourne the destination for the Christmas trek, and then you would be almost half way there already! :wink:

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You’ve been there for a month…the bar is dry!

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LOL, you have been to Australia. Did you come across a bar/pub that had run out of beer? :wink:

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This thread kept me up until 2am last nite…

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Me too… :rofl: Actually…this company keeps me up at night because I know I gotta start bringing home the bacon or MAC is going to go belly-up! Haha…