Starting a company was never an option for me. Considering the absurd framework of the company structure and reading the countless reactions to it here. However, two types of missions were particularly appealing to me: skydiving and firefighting missions.
I’ve done a few drop flights with the C208. Dropping parachutists from FL 100 with the C172 is more or less absurd. I know of many real jump clubs but no club that drops jumpers with a C172. The C172 struggles incredibly slowly with four people to FL 100. There, the aircraft is almost impossible to control safely because the engine simply runs out of air in the thin air at FL 100. The turbo-powered C208 is much more suitable, but the aircraft has some annoying quirks (e.g., the “idle” setting), and the missions also have many annoying moments (e.g., evaluating landing performance). I don’t need to list more here; everyone knows what I mean.
The greatest flying challenges are the fire attack flights with the CL 415 and the AT 802. Unfortunately, the missions with the CL 415 are almost unflyable due to the full range of nonsensical penalties for nonsensical events (e.g., flying into smoke or haze) or scooping from a lake which has the size of a fish pond. The engine monitoring also doesn’t even come close to representing reality. Flying at full throttle for more than 30 seconds results in an engine failure. (The original manual states “max. 4 minutes full throttle”). Consequently taking off from lakes with sufficient length for scooping is often almost impossible due to the weak engine when there’s an obstacle at the end. This isn’t a firefighting aircraft, but a lame duck.
Fortunately and strangely, the AT 802 missions are more or less free of nonsensical mission events; they occur very rarely. The aircraft handles well, and the water drops often hit the mark. The sense of achievement in flying is great here. Lately, there have been hardly any AT 802 fire missions in Europe, mostly CL 415 missions.
Why bother with endless flights that bring in a lot of money but are hardly any fun to fly? Do you want to make money or have flying fun? Is making money more fun than flying? In a company, when a crash occurs, you get annoyed about the money loss, even though it should actually affect your pilot’s honor. Why fret about maintenance costs? What do you want to do with those hundreds of millions of CR? Buy even more planes? What do you want to do with the many planes that can only be flown by other employee pilots ? Is this still a flight simulator in the true sense of the word?
As a freelancer without a company, I reached level 162, even earned 2 million CR, and reached the highest reputation level (S). I don’t need those rewards; I find the two mission types (para, fire) fun enough. Given this fun isn’t spoiled by new, annoying “surprises.” Flying for a company can bring in a lot of money, but along with a lot of hassle, for sure.
Is this the central object of a flight simulator?