Classic Airways is my Air Hauler Company in which I intend on working my way up using classic (or at least older) aircraft (mostly WWII period). If people are interested in seeing how it goes I'll add more posts as I progress in the form of a Diary (kinda).

Day 1

Opened base at Boonah, Australia. It costs a fair bit for the size and equipment, but it looks nice and is fun to take off from. I owned a Cessna Caravan which wasn't old enough, sold and began leasing a Hawker Fury. It's got a range of about 250 miles and can carry about 600kg of goods (presumably in my pockets). £30k deposit as well as just over £3k a month to keep it, going to be a long month.

My first job involved carrying Mail 32 nm away to Brisbane and carrying Wine and Spirits back.

I took off early morning, just as the sun was rising and flew fairly low over the scenery. It didn't take long to hit the city, where spotting the airport wasn't too hard and commenced a landing on the main runway








After delivering the mail, and grabbing a drink I head back home carrying some bottles of wine and spirits. Not sure why, they only drink Fosters as far as I am aware. Visibility is great, and the country side looks fantastic, but before I know it Boonah is in sight and I come in for a landing. I'm greeted by a group of Kangaroos, maybe that's who the wine is for.

Somehow only 80% of the booze made it back, cutting into my profits.












Click the images for a larger resolution.

good read ... and some beautiful sunrises there

Very cool. Does the process involve real world weather or unexpected things such as that?

Real World weather is optional. The program can give you a report of the local weather before you start the flight. The program doesn't really mind how you fly the sim, as long as you get from a to b, so you can use any weather engine / time of day you wish.

You get punished for poor flying though, so making the weather too bad can damage your goods.

Planes get damaged as you land poorly as well as general wear and tear. I think that this can lead to random failures as you fly, but I've not had that happen to me yet. I've now got an AI pilot under my command, who has damaged the plane slightly, so I may soon find out first hand.

Nice shots and write up! I presume this is FSX with a mod? What's the name of the mod if that's the case?

This is FSX.

Air Hauler addon is the business management sim. This is the main reason I'm flying FSX. There is a demo for it here
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?9469-Air-Hauler-Demo-Now-Available

Scenery is
OrbX Australia
Ants Boonah airport (Freeware and brilliant) http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/860-ants-aussie-airports-boonah/
OzX AU complete (freeware) http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/1825-ozx-au-complete-ozx-na-complete-ozx-libraries/

Also have Rex installed, but don't think it is set up correctly.

Aircraft is Hawker Fury, First Class Simulations Hawker Heroes package.

I'm a few days ahead of this write up. I'll put up some shots of Air Hauler when I catch up.

Archerfield airport , i work at the red dot about 2 minutes from the field..wave as you fly over




They busted a guy at Archerfield a couple of years ago , fraud i think..he had a hangar full of planes and cars and a couple of helis as well if i remember correctly.

I'll be sure to wave next time I'm over there

This Classic Airways is a great idea !

Air Hauler is also keeping me flying FSX. I have a well established company running in Europe for some time now (started in medium difficulty with a Cessna C208 Grand Caravan) Just started a new one in career mode with a few bucks and a Cessna 172. It's based in Prince Rupert, Canada and operating in British Columbia and Southern Alaska.

As I always fly with real computer time and real weather, I can fly daylight in the evening because of time difference with Canada. And having two companies running allows me to fly when the weather does not allow in one place.

Had a nice 150 miles flight yesterday morning with take off 7:00 local from PAWG Alaska back to CYPR carrying some frozen shrimps, and had daybreak and sunrise along the way amid some clouds.


Later I intend to use a floatplane and a DC3. Will have to earn enough bucks to afford the leasing and hire a pilot, which will take a lot of frozen shrimps trips in between... Or I might be able to establish a new base in Alaska with a Twin Otter. (will wait for spring and better weather)

I've started to fly real weather, but I prefer to set the time. It seems AH loves to put me in the dark, and Boonah has no lights (unless I hit the ground hard). I also fly real time, I love the scenery and don't know how to use Auto Pilots

Tempus kept telling me that I should get a DC-3, recently purchased the Twin Otter X though, so that may make it into my fleet before long. When November hits I'll be leasing a new aircraft.

Day 02

Today is my first attempt at being slightly more efficient, in that I carry two smaller jobs to the same airfield. I am tasked with moving Automotive parts and Flowers to Warwick, 40 nm away, and carrying some Shrimp back to Boonah.

It is early morning and I load up. I disregard the old saying about eggs in baskets, stuff the automotive parts in my pockets and stick the flowers to my upper wings. I hit my first problem. Flowers must contain dark matter as they weigh more than the car parts, putting me over my Fury's limit. I siphon some fuel out and replace the space with Flowers, they'll never know.

The wide orage sun gives a lovely hue to the country side. It's no longer the Green that I'm used to back home, but the Orange that I imagine the out back to look like. A quick hop over the hills and I spot Warwick and go in for a smooth landing.








It takes me a while to pull the flowers out of the fuel tank, thankfully they don't notice and I get my full pay. I load the shrimp around the plane and go to set off. It's now mid day, and the country side has transformed itself. The Greens are back, making the route back slightly more confusing than before. Unlike WWII though I've got a GPS (in the form of Plan-G) to guide me home.

I'd not come into Boonah from this angle before, so it took a few minuets (with low fuel) to locate the field, but notice that it comes off a large brown field, a sharp turn in, and I make it down. Flight time of 40 mins there and back.

The shrimp are fine and we have a BBQ with a happy client.

Good quick jobs ! May be not the best plane for hauling freight, but really good looking, and you can always threaten the customer with MGs if he doesn't want to pay straight away...
This is why I always start at bases with lights and ILS, having many IFR night flights back home (and loving them).

Next time i go past Archerfield i will grab you some happy snaps and see how it compares. They have doen a good job though because as soon as i hit that series of pictures i was like...woah..that's damn archerfield and surrounds

The colours do look nice and 'outbacky' early on but you will have to head a bit more inland to be in the true Outback.

I have the other one...Cargo pilot or some such thing. I'll have to reinstall now.

In fact I found a freeware Twin Otter 300 with skis and canadian repaint, might open base in Alaska during winter !

I've been getting back into this too. Tamba AirCargo (proprietor Tamba the Cat) is a new startup flying out of Hjornafjordur on the south East coast of Iceland. This is my second flight, a load of Beef from Saudarkrokur in the north back to base. I prepped my Twin Otter in the dawn light, the weather forecast was a bit unsettling for this rookie (read: completely unqualified) pilot.

After a nice cup of tea I was ready for the off.. The views from my cockpit were astounding.


I broke through the murk at around 8000ft and spent a happy 30 minutes worrying about an IFR approach through the mountains to home base... needn't have worried though. The weather on this side of the island was much better and I dropped down for visual on RW36


And got back just before the canteen closed. (gotta love those whale blubber sarnies)

Nice ! Not the best place in winter though...

Look forward to the Happy Snaps. Iceland looks like a great place for the Twin Otter, as long as you've got a thick jumper of course.

I'll start putting dates instead of days, I don't intend on flying or writing up every day unfortunately.

25 October

After a day break I'm tasked with shipping Frozen prawns to the Gold Coast. This is fine, but they want the soon, and it's now night time. I jump into my cockpit, and can't see a thing. I feel around and start up my Fury, and cautiously taxi towards the runway.

Using my GPS and compass I work out I'm heading the right way and throttle up. Leaving the ground behind me I start a climb. I notice a rather large problem, no artificial horizon and the ground is just as dark as the sky. Only the stars and the odd house light guide me.

It's a while before I notice something missing. The moon... I decide to gain some more altitude and see a large mushroom in the distance. This captivates me for a while, till I realise it is the moon and it's reflection off the ocean. At least I'm sure I'm going the right way now.

The lights on the runway point me to my destination, and I calmly land there, handing over 80% of the prawns. The others feel out while I was eating a snack.










Boonah doesn't have any lights, so I figure it is best to wait till morning before heading back. This becomes a profitable decision as I'm offered two jobs back, Frozen Turkeys and Seafood. This weighs me down and I'm required to leave some fuel behind. I figure it'll be fine.

I take off just as the sun rises, leaving the gold coast behind and head home. Fuel runs a little low when I reach the half way point. I throttle back and reduce the mixture as much as I can to try and save as much fuel as possible.

It works, Boonah comes into sight and I safely land, with some fuel in the tanks. Jobs compete I park up the Fury and stick my feet up.













Flying at night means some of the images are very dark. More are available here http://imgur.com/a/h5yR0#0

Quite an adventure with this plane... Must have been a little stressing on the out trip !
Almost got caught by night myself Sunday evening in British Columbia mountains with a small gravel strip to land on deep into a valley.
Think I'm stuck there for a couple of days looking at the weather forecast... You get too greedy sometimes and take some risks !

Any Air Hauler pilot can be interested in joining the Unofficial Air Hauler forum at :

http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php/forum/38-air-hauler/

I did join myself, nice guys there and lots of tips and infos about running your cargo company.

Thanks for the link. I've read a few articles over there, not signed up yet though.

Pics as promised from Archerfield airfield airport, first is a layout of where i was standing when i took the pics.

Camera (phone) was in the wrong light mode when i took the pics, but anyway

Nice pics, how is the business going ?