NeoFly: fly missions as a bush pilot in MSFS
Update! Version 2.0 released!
NeoFly is one of those neat little programs that can just put a smile on your face. The idea is pretty simple: you are a bush pilot at the service of NeoFly, and your mission is to deliver some cargo. It can also be to drop some “pizza” in a specified drop-zone… or maybe even to carry a medic into the middle of nowhere because some old man fell out of a tree and you have to find somewhere to land nearby to deliver the doctor. See how this can put a smile on your face? And it’s absolutely free!
For all that is great about MSFS’s “make your own adventure” style of play, sometimes one wonders if things would be even more fun if there was some “purpose” in all those flights. It’s one of the things that is lacking the most in Flight Simulator in our opinion, some kind of career mode, something to keep the motivation up and running. Thankfully, there are many tools that try to fill that avoid, many with great success. Addons like FSEconomy or OnAir, which we’ve discussed before, work pretty well, but can be daunting to the new user. And that’s what’s so great about NeoFly, it’s much more simple and straightforward.
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We’ve tested the latest version (beta 1.2), and were very impressive by how well it works. You choose a starting airport, search for available jobs in there, and off you go. Right now there are 8 different types of jobs: cargo delivery, passenger transport, VIP (need special care), emergency (land the medic in a random landing zone), illicit delivery (drop “pizza” over a drop zone), secret passenger (night flight), fragile cargo (needs smoother landings) and express deliveries (with a short deadline). There are even more types of mission in development, including a great idea of using Bing’s POI’s to generate these missions, like having an hospital nearby and do an emergency flight there.
During the mission you’ll be directed by audio messages from dispatch, with sound effects related to the type of mission you’re flying, like passengers boarding, cargo loading, and so on. And you earn money in each mission, which you can use to upgrade your pilot qualification, allowing you to accept better missions and fly bigger planes.
We particularly liked the emergency missions, where you must bring a medic within 2NM from the location of the accident. It’s great fun to arrive at the spot, not knowing exactly what kind if terrain you’ll find, and search for the best place to land. That’s as much as bush flying as it can be! And you even must take into consideration that you’ll have to be able to take off from there, because you need to return to the airport in order to start a new mission.
It’s really great at such an early stage, so we can only expect great things for the future of this little addon. NeoFly for MSFS is available for download on the official website, and there’s also a Discord channel about the project, where you can talk directly with the developer and the community.
– October 24th update –
Here are the current features (v2.0) :
- 8 bush missions : cargo, passengers, VIP (don’t shake them), emergency (land the medic in a random landing zone) illicit delivery (drop “pizza” above a drop zone), secret passenger (night flight), fragile cargo (land smoothly) as well as express delivery (with a short deadline).
- Live Emergencies: Ability to find real world events near your location and generate a mission based on it.
- New 2 hauler missions : airlines & humanitarian
- New – Hire a pilot to do missions with your planes
- Radio text & audio messages from the dispatch following you during the mission
- Sound effects (passengers boarding, cargo loading)
- 2 career modes (normal & sand box)t hat will give you access to more missions
- Flight tracking on the map with events
- Qualification system (pass exam to fly some planes)
- Aircraft Market is now available.
- Aircraft Management (Purchases, resells, repairs). The way you fly will impact the plane’s condition, you may experience surprises if you dont take care of your plane.
- Realism is not longer mandatory, but less XP will be rewarded.
- Free
New in version 2.0
- The player can now rent a plane from the market, but only aircraft the player is qualified to fly. The cost of hiring is 30% of the job earning. The player must have ⅓ of the cost of the plane in cash as a deposit but this will only be charged if you crash. – There is a new balance tab to see where your income and outgoings.
- In sandbox mode, you can now fly whatever plane you load in MSFS, even if it doesn’t match the hangar.
- Now you can trigger loading & boarding with both engine on or parking brake off – New checkbox in the search panel allows you to filter missions for planes at the pilot location and current rank.
Some bug fixes: - No more grass runways with jet planes.
- You can now repair an AI plane even if you are in mission
- No more AI bug with speed at 0
- No more losing landing bonus at take off
Important!
You will need your own Bing key for Neofly to work. You must get a free Bing key before the release or you will see the “Invalid credentials” in the map window.
Some help for the new features:
Hire a pilot to fly missions in any aircraft you own:
You can hire an AI pilot to do the passengers and cargo missions for you: he takes a 20% cut.
To do this, go to the hangar, right-click on a free plane and “Search missions at this place”. Then right-click on the mission (only cargo and passenger one) then choose a plane.
It will appear in the map and in the hangar tab, a new table allows you to see its status.
Airlines and humanitarian missions:
Only on major commercial hubs such as Paris or New York, they will show in the hub table. There’s now 25 hubs, but more can be added upon request. When you do a long distance search on this hub (up to 7000nm), they will show up.
Airlines are like passenger missions, but you can’t take off before the scheduled time, like any commercial flight. New sounds included!
Humanitarian missions take you to spots (in the spot table) which have a risk percentage. They require you to drop in a zone, under 1000 feet, but beware of surface-to-air missile fire!
Once the cargo is dropped, you must land at an airport, you can choose which one.
Ron McNichol
I purchased a couple of planes from Carenado that didn’t show up is a list of planes I can purchase. As my base of 0perations is Goroka, I pretty much can’t deal with any lesser planes. VERY short runways, and high altitudes.
How does one add-in purchase planes so they show up as “for sale in NeoFly?
Also, as I said, my base of operations is Goroka, and it doesn’t show up as a destination at the other airports I visited, which means I have to “dead-head” it back to Goroka with no mission.
Also, in Papua New Guinea I have seen missions to about 10 airports out of hundreds*. Can I add my own airports if I know the Lat/Lon and the ICAO designation?
* Not to mention nearby islands and Australia.
The missions you have are fine, especially if they would automagically work with new airports… assuming I can add them.
I understand the drop point missions would have to be handcrafted, and I wouldn’t expect you guys to do it. They could either be left out or perhaps the user could be allowed to add them.
MSFS Addons
Ron, you may want to ask those question on the project Discord channel here: https://discord.com/invite/S4Q4Ejp
Or contact the developer directly!
Ron McNichol
I just thought of an additional suggestion. Have the user’s saved data (Progress and hanger) stored in his own directory outside of NeoFly so their progress could be saved across updates. I copied mine out before updating it to V1.3. If it was already stored in the player’s directory that wouldn’t be needed. Perhaps in the location that contains NeoFly,
D:\user,
D:\NeoFlyV1.3
Ron McNichol
I love the V1.3 update.
I posted recently about the many airports in Papua New Guinea.
I can gradually build up a set of ICAO and Lat/Long combinations to send you if you want to incorporate them. Perhaps add runway lengths to that info, so the size of the plane could be considered. I am going to do that anyway, over time, and would be willing to send it to you if you want it.
As near as I can tell, there are only ~10 Papua APs already in your DB. I have personally landed in over 100. ( in FSX, not 2020… yet.) 😉
David Marlor
Looks like here is an API issue with Bing maps, to Neofly is not working at the moment. The developer is working on it.
Gideon Spence
After update all previous flight data gone , how do i transfer flight data from 1.3.1 to 1.3.4 ? Don’t want to start from the beginning…any ideas….
MSFS Addons
Gideon, we recommend that you check the official Discord channel about NeoFly. The community and the developer are very active there and should be able to help you. It’s here: https://discord.gg/S4Q4Ejp
marcelo henrique canela
thank you very much for this addon, i’m leaving fseconomy, goodbye social life kkkkkk