I had Freight Dogs for FS9/2004 and it was by far my favorite Add-on. I'd read somewhere that the creator or owner had some unfortunate mishap, that caused the FSX edition of it to be lost to the FSX community. I had great fun with it -mostly because I'm a bush piloting fan- and really miss it.

For those unfamiliar with the add-on; it provided an applet that could be accessed in flight from the FS9 menu. That applet let you choose a departure and destination airport and spec a cargo type/weight. It would then place that cargo at some point in the airport, which you'd need to taxi to have it loaded. It'd auto-generate a flight plan and you'd be on a timer for your arrival and unloading at the destination airport. IIRC it even supported seaplane airports, where you'd instead water taxi up to a point on the dock. Not to mention the package included a nice aircraft and fine rural airport. Yes I know, it seems simple but I enjoyed it none the less.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of anything similar, or whether I'm just word not allowed of some similar built-in functionality in FSX? I did purchase Dovetail's Cargo Crew add-on, but it's really just a series of adventures and nowhere near the depth of Freight Dosg; albeit it was cheap and some of those adventures are fun.

just flight - air hauler 2 is freight dogs on steroids.  It's in alpha but incredibly well supported and functions fine in its current form. 

Thanks for pointing that Air Hauler out.

What about Air Hauler 1 which has already been released? These 2 paragraphs of its marketing blurb make it sound similar to Freight Dogs:

"As the pilot charged with delivering the goods on time, you can decide to fly a job in multiple legs, or stop anywhere en route for refuelling or maintenance. Contend with real-world weather conditions if you want the extra challenge and keep a watchful eye on your fuel economy - the price of fuel in Air Hauler can vary with the real-world price of aviation fuel for added realism!

The busy freight pilot will appreciate Air Hauler's flight briefings in the Flight Simulator kneeboard, and you can easily create a custom parking position anywhere on an airport and choose the airport gate for your departures."

The kneeboard reads like an improvement over Freight Dogs menu selectable applet. TBH, at only $30 US I wouldn't mind paying that price again down the road, if I could get a stable/bug free experience now with 1st edition. The prudent thing is obviously to wait for AH 2 which is only $10 US more and has more longer term upside since it also supports P3Dv4. But it's only just in alpha and heck, I want to fly now!   :)

 

AH2 is just about to come out of beta according to their forums.

 

No pickups, no destination restrictions, no time limits, but you get to make money and haul things. Consider it a freeware pastime until AirHauler2 is released.

https://sites.google.com/site/fsxstuffbybk/gauges/maintenance-income-tool

Cool Bjoern thanks for providing that link -  I'll most definitely check out the Maintenance Income Tool. Meanwhile, I've added Air Hauler 2 to my shopping list and will probably own it before it's out of beta, or at least shortly after.