Have you ever wanted to own or run an airline, but didn’t have the money, experience, or desire to handle never ending union negotiations, volatile fuel prices, and endless government red tape? Well, I have the answer for your conundrum. It is quite possibly the best airline simulation in existence. So, just in case you’ve missed it, come along with me as I review the venerable Air Hauler by Just Flight. After the install, you are given four options to configure your business. Think of this as selecting the difficulty level on your favorite game.
- Option 1: Easy- $500,000 in the bank, a Lear 45 and 60% reputation
- Option 2: Medium- $200,000 in the bank, a Cessna Caravan, and 50% reputation
- Option 3: Hard- $100,000 in the bank, a Cessna 172 and 40% reputation
- Option 4: Career-$100,000 in the bank, a Cessna 172, 40% reputation, but the aircraft available are limited by your rank, as opposed to the other options where you are already the top rank with a near unlimited MTOW. It also means you cannot lease aircraft until your reputation has reached at least 50%. Oh yeah, you can’t hire crew until you reach 55% reputation.
Being the hardcore, “bring it on”, “If it ain’t rainin’, we ain’t trainin” person I am, I very quickly and confidently selected option one. I have no desire to spend a bunch of time flying a Cessna 172. Once this is done, you’ll select average job distance, number of jobs generated, how much capacity per job and the average airport size. These are all on sliders and totally adjustable in game. At this point, you will be prompted to upload your scenery database. I highly suggest you do so. You’re going to have to fly routes yourself so you might want to make sure Air Hauler knows the subtle differences in altitude or terrain of your add-ons. Otherwise, it might not know the difference between you still flying or making a nice, safe, greaser of a landing. It only takes a few minutes, just do it.
Air Hauler also gives you the ability to add custom aircraft to your fleet, instead of just the default aircraft. So, if you spend a mint on lots of payware aircraft, you can import and use them in game. Just know that a price is set for those aircraft, so don’t expect to use your high end 747 without a lot of money. *TOP TIP*- Download Vladimir Zhyluski’s freeware Fairchild C-123K and install it in the game. It’s pretty inexpensive to buy in game and can hold an enormous amount of cargo.
One of my favorite things about Air Hauler is the ability to play the stock market. Using downloaded data, you can build a portfolio and watch it grow (or shrink) according to the markets. Just be careful with this feature because you have to pay for the stocks and fees out of your main bank, and that takes away from operating expenses. I did notice, however, that when I invested large amounts of money, my portfolio exploded. I took that same list of investments to another profile, invested 10x less and it sunk me. So, be careful with how you invest.
Money, reputation, and scheduling will dominate your time in Air Hauler. Just like in real life, these three things are the main points to success. Though separate items, they are all connected. Scheduling is how you make your money, but you have to do it in a way that provides ample time for your pilots to complete the task. Failing to complete a task (or crashing, or delivering to a wrong location, etc) affects your reputation negatively. If your reputation declines, your ability to get jobs, cargo capacity, ability to hire and the quality of the available flight crews, as well as the ability to get a loan or lease, decline with it. In fact, if your reputation gets too low, or your crew is over/under worked, they may quit. Conversely, when you complete jobs yourself, your reputation goes up. As it does, your ability and capacity for those things also goes up.
It’s a good idea to complete jobs yourself at least twice a week to steadily improve your reputation and provide a buffer zone for when your AI crew screws up. Money is the lifeblood of any business. In order to survive, you need to be “fluid”. This means managing your cash flow properly to ensure your bills are paid, payroll is met, aircraft maintenance (including annuals) is performed, and you have the money needed for those unexpected “oops moments”. Just like in real life, if you’re not growing the business, it’s shrinking.
So, how does this compare with participating with a traditional online virtual airline organization? Well, it’s a little more work from a management standpoint. In a VA, you don’t have to worry about cash flow, payroll, maintenance, scheduling, etc. But on the other hand, you also don’t have to worry about people complaining about every little thing. Like not having a plane or route they want, where the hubs are located, why they haven’t completed the required flight hours, arguing about VATSIM/ACARS/offline realism, or babysitting a forum. (I know every VA supervisor and manager who reads this just cracked up laughing!). In my opinion, this is far superior to a virtual airline organization because of the things you don’t have to deal with. If you absolutely must have human contact, Air Hauler has graciously set up online forums where users can communicate by exchanging ideas and helping one another with issues. Let them do the moderating for a change.
Is It Worth Your Money?
For the asking price of $37.99, yeah, I do. Parents: If you have a kid that loves aviation, and you want to teach business or cash management skills to them, pick them up a copy of Air Hauler and let the lessons begin. They get to be creative and come up with a business name, but then they also have to be responsible enough to manage cash flow, pay bills on time, and run the business, and all while keeping them into the flight simulator they are going to be flying anyway! Participate with them and make it time you spend together having fun and learning. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. This is a feature rich, reasonably realistic, airline management simulation. I feel that it is superior to a traditional virtual airline and could even be used as a teaching tool!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Air Hauler is a business simulation add-on for FSX and X-Plane. No Technical Summary is warranted.
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