Thanks Mickel. One more thing:

 

Do the choices it gives you for destinations -- the jobs it offers when you take on a new assignment -- do they just tend to be the larger airports?  As I mentioned, since I'm a GA flyer, I like the possibility that I get to fly into some tiny little places in the middle of nowhere.  Hoping AH doesn't just keep the listing to the big/popular airports.  (Unfortunately, it's not obvious from the demo).

 

One thing I like about Ideal Flight is that it allows you to define a group of airports (multiple groups, actually) that the missions will choose from.  You can set up a list of, let's say, big hubs in North America, or little grass runways in the mountains, or just a list of your favorites that you like to go to.  It's very customizable that way.  Hoping AH is too.  

In AH, you start each company with a 'base', but can quickly add more bases depending on how big you want your company to get - particularly if you stick to small grass/farm airstrips which are cheap to lease. In terms of your geographic reach, you are only really limited by how far your aircraft can fly (and even then, you can flight plan refuelling stops to go longer distances if you want/need to). You can lease bases on opposite sides of a state, country or the globe if you so choose, but normally you'd look to acquire a fleet that best suits the reach of your operation.

Another option to get the coverage you mention would be to set up 3 or 4 companies in different parts of North America, but at some point you might just have to accept the incompatibility of low and slow aircraft with a continent-wide network!

Given some of your earlier comments, I'd suggest getting FTX PNW and building a company with 3 or 4 bases spread around BC, Washington and Oregon. That's plenty of real estate and scenic variety for GA flying without getting yourself into unrealistic cross-continental flights in small planes.

Yeah, that part of the world is so damn gorgeous, and FTX's PNW is definitely on my to-buy list.  I am a tad concerned about how well Orbx's regions will run on my system -- which I probably won't be able to properly upgrade to a gaming gaming until later in the summer or fall.  (Slightly off topic, but Portia911: do you noticed it running slower when you bought a region?  Can't tell what kind of system you have.)

 

Also, about AH's selection of airports for the assignments: decent variety? not all large/highly trafficed ones?  (I'm THIS close to just buying it now!)  

You 'import' the planes and 'update' scenery and AH then uses whatever you've got. So it's basically a shell that wraps around whatever you have in FSX. If you later buy, say FTX PNW, you'll need to update AH's scenery (within AH) and then you'll have all the airfields - large and small (and seaplane bases too!) - that come with PNW. Same with planes, you buy and install Lionheart's Kodiak or the Carenado Caravan in FSX and then 'import' it into AH, buy (or lease) it for your company, and away you go!

 

Re: frame rates, I honestly can't say because I had most of the regional packs before I got FTX Global. Also I constantly tinker with graphic card settings, weather engines/textures and FTX itself, so it's really hard to make a before and after comparison - especially on something I installed a while ago. My overall impression is that FTX stuff is generally fairly frame-rate friendly, but you may need to experiment with settings a bit to find the best combination for your system. I would consider mine to be low to mid-range.

Thanks, Portia911, and everyone else.  This has all been really helpful.  Looking forward to starting a "career" soon ... and getting more into this rather addictive little hobby.    Happy flying!

My pleasure, rufowler.

I think I misunderstood your question about airports now I re-read it. As far as jobs go, AH will 'know' what planes you have in your fleet at any given time and will generate jobs approximate to your planes cargo capacity and range. You get to set a number of parameters for jobs up front (many to few, short to long distances, light to heavy loads, small to large airports, more or less base to base jobs etc), then AH generates a selection of available jobs with delivery deadlines to, from and in the general vicinity of your base(s).

Also, if you haven't found it already, there's a AH sub-forum on the Just Flight website. Just going back and reading through the posts there will give you a better feel for what AH is all about.

Hope you choose to join us airhaulics soon!

I figured it would just read from the index of airports I have loaded into FSX.  I was wondering more about whether the algorithm that generates missions/jobs is really random (which I would prefer as I'd like to see places/airports I might not have heard about) or if it skews more towards the larger airports that in real life would probably be getting more cargo traffic.

 

But no matter, I think I'm going to go ahead and buy it regardless in the next day or two. I didn't know about the support forum, but I just looked it up.  (For all else interested, it's http://forum.justflight.com/forum_topics.asp?FID=33&title=air-hauler-general-discussion.)  Thanks for the heads up!

I guess my hesitation is that it appears that AH mainly has a hub-based system rather than a point-to-point system ... which would definitely be my preference.

 

Am I wrong in thinking the game operates this way? Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

Like mentioned, you start with one hub. You are not only offered jobs in and out of your base, but also jobs that are near your base (origin and destination are not your home base).

 

I personally started AH flying from a local GA airport. Only flew with small aircrafts (on sunny days) until I got the jet fewer

 

Now I have bases in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, GB, Portugal, France, US, Canada, ...

 

Plenty of nasty weather flying to choose from

Why don't you join virtual airlines? Check out Virtual Air Logistics. It has everything you're looking for. 

If you are looking for career addons for GA, then might I suggest you give FS Economy a look. It's a "virtual world" based on business and economy using your flightsim of choice. It's a quite large community.

Yeah, I've read a little about VA's and did see something about FS Economy specifically. I don't know why, but I kind of assumed I'd work my way up to that as I got to be a better flyer (I've only been at this for a few weeks) ... and maybe had a better running system.  Figured I'd start with a addon program first and develop my skills first.  But perhaps that's not really the way I need to look at it. Hmmm.

I would recommend both. They both offer something that the other does not. I have flown a lot with FSE and it is lots of fun. FSE allows you to fly almost any GA aircraft you can think of and a few small commercial aircraft (nothing bigger than a 738 or a A321). It also allows you to have business interactions with other players such as buying and selling planes, ferrying aircraft or goods, and much more and the best part is it is free.

 

What interests me in programs like REX Latitude or similar products is the evaluation of my flying and the ability to progress through a career. When I am able to get back to flight sim in a couple of months I plan on getting REX Latitude and running it along side FSE, so that is a possibility you could look into.

REX is developing SimAir which will be a featurepacked career addon - if they deliver. We shall see

 

In regards to FSE, I suggest doing what you are comfortable with. If you need to dip your toes with addons first, do so. It is not like vatsim - you dont have life atc or aircraft in your flightsim through FSE. You can use vatsim during your FSE flights, however.

Cool.  Actually that DOES sound pretty neat.  Dunno why I forgot to ask this the other day, but does anyone know if Air Hauler does what other programs (like Ideal Flight, FSPassengers, & Latitude) do -- evaluate your flying?  Since I'm a novice flyer, I'd definitely benefit from that, and it would be nice to both build a "career" while also having the flight observed/evaluated.

There are two programs that have made my flying better or lets say more consistent (in the order of date of purchase):

 

1) Air Hauler evaluates your landings. Too firm and you start to break things and the needed repairs cut into your profit. Also learned to fly with realistic fuel loads, because couple of over the max takeoff weight departures resulted in a crash.

 

2) FS flight keeper also evaluates your landings, but also that you operate the aircraft systems correctly and do not taxi too fast.

 

3) Latitude is to most strict and made the most noticeable change (for the better) in my flying. It requires you to fly a certain way, so it is not suitable for lazy sunday scenery flights.

 

I personally feel that this was a good way to learn, because you had to get the basics right to score well. Then Latitude was like a check ride, where even the smallest of mistakes doesn't get unnoticed the intructor.