Not exactly happy about the maintenance costs in OnAir to be honest. Thought I'd do some maintenance on one aircraft that had an engine just go under 90%. Gaining a couple of percentage points will cost me almost 1.5 million and take about 24 hours. That feels kind of excessive. If I were to have engines at, say 85% and fix it up to 100%, it would be cheaper to buy a new aircraft instead of maintaining the old. Crazy. 

38 minutes ago, Swe_Richard said:

Not exactly happy about the maintenance costs in OnAir to be honest. Thought I'd do some maintenance on one aircraft that had an engine just go under 90%. Gaining a couple of percentage points will cost me almost 1.5 million and take about 24 hours. That feels kind of excessive. If I were to have engines at, say 85% and fix it up to 100%, it would be cheaper to buy a new aircraft instead of maintaining the old. Crazy. 

Send it in as feedback and they will look at it 🙂 

14 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Send it in as feedback and they will look at it 🙂 

Yeah, I've sent in my feedback but it seems it is working as intended. Absolute bonkers.

Hmm.. If I am not mistaken the cost has been halved after the last maintenance! That is better!

Hmm.. although I really hope they haven't ramped up the wear and tear instead.. 😉

 

On 9/25/2020 at 4:16 PM, Moria15 said:

Yeah..  it can be..  however, it does become second nature after a while...   a couple of tips...

1)  If you rent an aircraft.. make sure there is either enough fuel in it to get to somewhere useful, or the airport sells the right type of fuel.

2)  if you want anything other than a single engine piston plane, you are going to have to do a check flight to make sure you can fly it adequately.

3)  if you are not on thunder.. be careful renting as there is a minimum no of hours you have to do each day and you will get charged for the excess

4)  if you start briefly on Cumulus, there is a tutorial you can do that will help get some things sorted out for you 🙂

Graham

I tried OnAir in Clear Skies and Cumulus and will never go back. The experience was absolutely frustrating because of so many inconsistencies. All I wanted to do was to rent and fly a B350, but

- in Clear Skies, the plane was consistently placed on airports with no FBO and not enough fuel for the check ride. FBOs were totally random. For instance, there was one at the tiny airstrip CTH3 (1500' runway) but not at the much larger nearby CYYY (4000' and 5000' runways).

- Some users informed me that, in Cumulus, CYYY had an FBO. So the availability of FBOs even depends on the world you are in, and the supposedly most easy world makes it the hardest to find FBOs.

- In Cumulus, I was able to find B350s at airports with an FBO, but very often it was located at airports with too short a runway for the airplane to take off. In one case, the airport didn't even exist in P3D 4.5.

- I finally found a B350 at an airport with a 3000' runway (still too short for takeoff at MTOW, but I figured it would work out with less payload) and took my check ride. When I tried to do my first job, my airplane (Milviz B350i) required a copilot. The real airplane can be flown by a single pilot with proper training. Other users informed me that their B350s (Carenado B350, MSFS B350) do not require a copilot. 

- When I wanted to hire a copilot, OnAir did not let me do that because I didn't have the skill points. That's when I gave up.

There were other aspects that I didn't like. The economic data are completely unrealistic. The B350 would have been pretty cheap ($800k) compared to real life. On the other hand, the money you can earn for jobs is ridiculously high. For instance, I was offered a job for $1000 to fly a small amount of payware (about 100 lbs) to another airport that was just 20km away. 

I would therefore consider OnAir to be a game rather than a simulation. That's fine, but as a game it let's you jump through so many hoops, has so many oddities, and adds so many roadblocks that at least I had no fun with it whatsoever. It is great if it works for others, but new users should definitely take advantage of the full trial period before committing.

Peter

Yeah, the fuel thing can be insanely frustrating at times. More than once I’ve had to ferry fuel to a stranded aircraft. Once bought a KingAir that was situated on an airport with such a small runway that it was impossible to T/O. 😂

but other than that, 100% of my flying is in OnAir and I am loving it!

Ive also sent feedback about the fuel thing. Like renting a plane (or worse, buying) and then it doesnt even have enough fuel to taxi to the runway, and no fuel available at the airport. 

2 hours ago, Swe_Richard said:

Yeah, the fuel thing can be insanely frustrating at times. More than once I’ve had to ferry fuel to a stranded aircraft. Once bought a KingAir that was situated on an airport with such a small runway that it was impossible to T/O. 😂

but other than that, 100% of my flying is in OnAir and I am loving it!

had  this  once  now  i make  sure the  airports  that  i  fly  to have  to correct  fuel,  found  out  the  plane  i was  flying  only  uses  jet  fuel  and  the  airport  that i landed  only  sold  non  jet  fuel  hence i was  stuck  there.  Had  to ferry  jet  fuel  to  fly it  out.

17 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

had  this  once  now  i make  sure the  airports  that  i  fly  to have  to correct  fuel,  found  out  the  plane  i was  flying  only  uses  jet  fuel  and  the  airport  that i landed  only  sold  non  jet  fuel  hence i was  stuck  there.  Had  to ferry  jet  fuel  to  fly it  out.

Nahhh  just setup a simple FBO at your base..  add a fuel tank to it..  and then fill-up at start of day with enough to do the jobs and get back.   

If you want a new plane and it's at a small airport and you are not on thunder..  hire a cheap pilot that is qualified to fly that plane type for a few hours..  send them to the airport and bring it back to a nice big one, or your home airport and then do the check rides etc from the big airport  (I did my checkrides for the A320 at Farnborough..  probably the longest runway in the UK to make it real easy)..  if you don't like it after that just dump it there and pay the penalty, or re-hire a cheap pilot for a couple of hours to fly it back 🙂

If no fuel at the airport where the plane is..  same hired pilot.. rent a cheappy cessna..  fly the fuel out..  refil the plane.. get the hired pilot to bring the new plane back.  then send hired pilot back to airport and take home cessna and get rid of it..  total cost..  pilot + a couople hours rental 🙂

So far..  I don't have a problem with the maintenance costs..  yeah it might cost me a mill to service an engine, but 24 hours later, I can go on a flight that makes me 15 - 20 mill so the cost is a drop of water in a teacup really.  Evene on Stratus or Thunder with survival mode on it's really hard to loose money with just a modicum of planning 🙂

Graham

Edited October 22, 20205 yr by Moria15

5 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

Nahhh  just setup a simple FBO at your base..  add a fuel tank to it..  and then fill-up at start of day with enough to do the jobs and get back.   

If you want a new plane and it's at a small airport and you are not on thunder..  hire a cheap pilot that is qualified to fly that plane type for a few hours..  send them to the airport and bring it back to a nice big one, or your home airport and then do the check rides etc from the big airport  (I did my checkrides for the A320 at Farnborough..  probably the longest runway in the UK to make it real easy)..  if you don't like it after that just dump it there and pay the penalty, or re-hire a cheap pilot for a couple of hours to fly it back 🙂

So far..  I don't have a problem with the maintenance costs..  yeah it might cost me a mill to service an engine, but 24 hours later, I can go on a flight that makes me 15 - 20 mill so the cost is a drop of water in a teacup really.  Evene on Stratus or Thunder with survival mode on it's really hard to loose money with just a modicum of planning 🙂

Graham

still need  to  refuel  at the  airport  that  you land  at unless  your  only  doing  short  hops

3 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

still need  to  refuel  at the  airport  that  you land  at unless  your  only  doing  short  hops

Oh, if I am faffing around at the smaller airports that may not have fuel and can't be bothered to check if there is fuel.. I always carry a couple of jerrycans of fuel in the aircraft along with the cargo just in case 🙂

Graham