Since a few days there seem to be no more Air Tractor fire fighting missions. So far I have successfully flown this mission type for several weeks (about 30 times). At-802 firefighting is the only mission I could fly successfully from start to shutdown without any annoying incident. I flew this missions without company as a free lancer. Without the fun of this mission I would have put FS 24 aside. With other mission types I have only experienced annoyance and frustration.
I also tried the Viking CL-415 firefighting missions, but I could never complete any of them because each time a new and very annoying surprise ended the mission. I think this mission is because of bugs hardly feasible. (Although I meanwhile have managed to scoop 100% water and takeoff without engine overload) This mission could really be a great flying challenge if crazy things don’t happen, sometimes even before mission start, which leads to rep loss.
e.g.: after accepting the mission, the start scenery shows a CL-415 that has collapsed upside down in a hangar. Result: aircraft crash, rep from S to C.
or another one here: CL-415 Firefighting - pilot error - approaching in smoke
I have the whole of Europe and large parts of Eastern Europe to choose from, but since 3 days nowhere is any Air Tractor mission to be seen.
EDIT:
I now have a possible explanation, but it’s just a guess. Since I’ve successfully flown many (about 35 times) AT 802 fire missions, it’s possible that the “supply” for generating new missions has been “exhausted”. During the course of previous missions, I noticed that I repeatedly took off from the same airports. And the location and fire sites (e.g., dedicated location on a mountainside) were similar or identical, and this happened across Europe. To prevent the same sim objects from being encountered frequently, mission generation has been stopped. That would be a pity, it means no variety.
As I said, just a guess.
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Same here. In my real career I just need three more missions with the AT-802 to buy the CL-415, even I’ve got the money, and my career is stopped because of this.
On the other hand, I’ve been able to try some CL-415 missions in SU Beta and, as you said, I have completed none. Sometimes the place to scoop is impossible to take off from, sometimes I drop the water just above the fire and has no effect… It’s very challenging if not bugged.
Anyway I won’t surrender. Those missions are really one of the most exciting features of the sim. I hope they will fix them. And I guess the AT-802 missions will come back sooner or later and I’ll be able to complete my specialization.
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Yes, CL-415 fire fighting for me is the most exciting and challenging mission . . . if it works at all. As good as the AT 802 mission is, the CL-415 mission is just as poor. At the moment, it’s impossible to complete this mission without a crash or pilot error. There’s always an annoying surprise, sometimes even at the start of the mission.
Furthermore, I believe the engine performance doesn’t reflect reality. The aircraft can only scoop and take off from large, long lakes (or from the sea).
In videos of the real CL 415 scooping water, I get a completely different impression. The real CL-415 scoops water within about 4 sec. and then takes off effortlessly. That’s what you imagine a high-performance firefighting aircraft to be.
To me, the FS 24 Viking CL415 is a lame duck whose wings are additionally mercilessly clipped by sim bugs. Will it get better? I doubt it. Asobo has so many other projects underway; it will be a long time before this fundamentally ingenious and interesting mission challenge is significantly improved.
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I totally agree. It is slow and is very hard to recover speed and altitude. I have had accidents in situations that this aircraft could have easily overcome. It deserves a hard review from the programmers.
I’m confident that this aircraft will improve. It’s one of the crown jewels of the sim, you can see it in the front of every ad. There’s no sense in creating such a big feature and leave it mid-cooked. But certainly they have a lot of work in other fronts.
Same here. Since about 3/4 days no fires in the world both for freelancer and employee.
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Yes, that’s absolutely true. But, Asobo created a dozen missions that are half-baked at best. You and I love the fire missions, others like cargo or big airliner, etc., all of them more or less useless and annoying fun brakes.
Even if the CL-415’s engine performance is improved, which is easy to implement, the fragile mission structure remains. I suspect mission generation is AI-controlled, which could explain the many strange bugs. If that’s the case, the entire mission structure would have to be rewritten. Guess how long that would take?
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Neofly. You can do infinite firefighting anywhere in the world. Forget default career.
Try “Aero Fire Global 24.” ($15) In FS 24 you can fly the CL-415 and AT-802 with real scoop and drop functionality. Fires can be set worldwide (always near any selected airfield) or real fires anywhere in the world. The extinguishing success check is still missing. This could become a viable alternative to the FS 24 fire missions, which are almost unusable (CL-415 missions).
I have exactly your problem, and I can’t find any solutions. Furthermore, I have 11 Air Tractors in my fleet, and I can’t fly even one of them due to the missing missions!! 
You’re annoyed because you can’t fly the CL-415. I can assure you, you’d be extremely annoyed if you were flying this aircraft in a fire mission. Aside from the unrealistic performance, these missions are unplayable. Crazy things happen before you even start. Like finding the CL-415 crashed upside down into a hangar, or it starting on its own and giving you a “Crash Pilot Error” and so on. Each time, your reputation drops by a whole level, entirely through no fault of your own.
I’ve flown eight CL-415 missions so far, four of which I couldn’t complete due to various pilot errors (e.g., entering smoke) or water areas that were completely unsuitable for scooping (small fish ponds). Often I couldn’t even start the missions because some kind of cazy crash happened before takeoff, of course no fault of my own.
Of the many AT-802 missions, I successfully completed all of them without any problems. These missions are fun and well-developed. However, there are currently no AT-802 missions to be found anywhere in the world.
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It’s really incredible and inconceivable that this problem hasn’t been solved yet!!! it was one of the most beautiful playable missions until 2/3 weeks ago, those of the AT-802 missions. Moreover, we paid for it…nobody gave it to us!
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VIP missions also dissapeared for two or three weeks and it was also irritating. It stopped almost everyone’s career.
I suppose they’re fixing those kind of missions. But obviously the Live and the Beta environments are not completely severed because in this case they will just leave them on Live and fix them on Beta. Those missions are not available in either environment.
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