I have always been a passenger airline pilot. The idea of moving passengers around simply appealed, and still appeals, a lot more to me than healing cargo. However, the plane I want to fly forces me to get into the cargo hauling business because it's a dying breed among passenger airlines: the MD-11. The MD-11 is still used by KLM, martinair, and Finnair, which has one pax MD-11 (the other converted to cargo). However, both Martinair and KLM fly from, you guewssed it, Schiphol airport. Now, normally that's no problem for me. I'm Dutch, so I should be very excited that two of three airlines that use the MD-11 are Dutch, right? Well I'm not, because Aerosoft's Schiphol is a terrible frame hog for me, both in FS9 and FSX. Driving around the airport, I get 10FPS, whereas I tend to get 18 at FSDT's KJFK using MegaScenery NYC and Aerosoft's Manhattan X... So, if I fly around the US, I'll be flying FedEx mostly. Problem is I have no idea how cargo airlines operate. I've been looking around wikipedia to get an idea of where these cargo airlines fly to and from, but there isn't always a clear list. Sometime sit even seems like destinations can vary from week to week, from month to month. So how does this exactly work? Is there an actual timetable, just like for passenger airlines, or can destinations simply change depending on amount of cargo that needs to be hauled to a certain destination? And, can anybody give me an overview of MD-11 cargo carriers that fly in and out of KJFK? Seems like FedEx flies in and out of KEWR, not KJFK...

I fly mostly cargo routes in FSX over other flights. I usually pick up the scheduling from Flightaware.com. Here are some of the current schedules for UPS for example:http://flightaware.com/live/fleet/UPSI usually just pick one and go. I also fly Kelowna Flightcraft, Fedex and DHL routes as well. You should be able to find everything you are looking for on Flightaware.com. And yes they are scheduled just like passenger planes as they have runway scheduling as well.

And, can anybody give me an overview of MD-11 cargo carriers that fly in and out of KJFK? Seems like FedEx flies in and out of KEWR, not KJFK...

I do a lot of Cargo flights and have the same issues.This is the method I would use for your search..1) Go to the JFK wiki page and see if there's a list of Cargo operators and destinations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport#Scheduled_cargo_airlines_and_destinations2) Go to each Cargo Airlines link and check if their's an MD11 in their fleet. These are the MD11 operators I found. - Cargoitalia - Milan-Malpensa - EVA Air Cargo - Taipei-Taoyuan - Fedex - Indianapolis, Memphis - Finnair Cargo - Helsinki - Lufthansa Cargo - Frankfurt, Manchester (UK) - Saudi Arabian Cargo - Brussels, Dammam, Riyadh - UPS - Chicago-Rockford, Louisville, Philadelphia Cargoitalia's is an MD11 only fleet (according to the wiki page) so we have one confirmed MD11 KJFK-LIML MD11 Cargo flight to start.3) Go to flightaware.com's recent IFR route list, and see if any recent MD11 routes match for the airlines and desinations list from KJFK (this will only work if one of aiports is a US airport). Ex http://flightaware.com/analysis/route.rvt?origin=KJFK&destination=EDDF My results are... - MD11 - Cargoitalia - Milan-Malpensa - MD11 - Lufthansa Cargo - Frankfurt, Manchester (UK) Based on the flightaware search, Fedex did fly out of KJFK, but only with DC10's, and A310's.To try and get an idea of what type of chartered routes might have been flown by a particular airline, theseare some of the places I've searched.Check press releases of Cargo operators. They often annouce certain cargo flights they have madeand what was shipped if it was newsworthy.In this search I found a site dedicated to the MD11, with some press release info relating to MD11 chartered flights.http://md-eleven.net/Anoter thing might I do is go to Airliners .net and look for photos of that aircraft/airline, and see if anyonehas taken a recent photo of that Cargo operator in a location not on its scheduled destinations list.Regards.Ernie.

Wow, a wealth of information, I thank you both! This should get me started quite nicely.