INTERVIEW WITH DUNCAN MURRAY - THE DEVELOPER OF AIR HAULER

Duncan Murray is the brains behind the Air Hauler, the new expansion for FSX and FS2004 which we are proud to be publishing. While we all appreciate the hard work developers put in to create the add-ons we enjoy so much, we rarely get to hear from them in person, so we thought we'd ask Duncan a few questions. Being the gentleman that he is, he was only too happy to discuss Air Hauler with us...

What gave you the inspiration to start developing Air Hauler?

Ultimately, Air Hauler was the game that I wanted to play. There are a few add-ons which I'd used before such as Cargo Pilot and FsPax, but they both left me wanting more. Cargo Pilot had the right philosophy, but I found the lack of maps and flexibility restrictive, and from a company management side, the financials make no sense. FSPax is a sandbox game – you can fly anywhere you want at a moment’s notice, which I found totally unrealistic. So I thought about how I would do it – with maps, routes, proper financials, and an ‘open’ approach so you could stop en route for fuel, fly multiple jobs at the same time – and stay in Flight Sim and not have to keep relaunching it. Once I had a good idea of what I wanted, I realised that I'd have to write it myself!

Has Air Hauler turned out as you’d wished, or is it now a different beast altogether?

It's far more than I had previously envisaged, and most of that functionality has been added only in the last few months. The core of the game was the first thing to be done – jobs, routes, maps and so on, but more recently that's expanded to AI pilots, loans, insurance, stocks and shares etc. and it's now really quite a full experience. So, it's turned out much better than I wanted, but has the core game play that's been essential from day one.

I believe this is your first commercial release? What’s it like to see it out there, in the hands of the masses?

It's fantastic! I can't wait for the boxes to hit the shelves, then I'm going to go all fan-boy and buy it myself – just because I can!

Is your work done now, or are you supporting the growing Air Hauler community?

Air Hauler isn't just a one off product – I have plans to expand it over the coming years with updates, and add-on packs – and the plan is to build it into a franchise with several products or add-ons expanding the original.

What were the best and worst moments of the development cycle? How long has it taken to produce from conception to completion?

The best moment was the birth of my new baby daughter! But also meeting and chatting with Just Flight and having them on board as publisher. That was excellent, both as it meant I didn't need to self-publish, that I'd get into proper retail establishments, and most of all it was a vindication that Air Hauler was a good product!

The worst moments of the development cycle were maths concerning latitude and longitude, the multitude of different ways add-on aircraft manufacturers do their aircraft.cfg files, and importing scenery – all those things drove me mad for months , but I did manage to solve them in the end.

It's taken around 18 months from conception to completion. That's largely because I've been doing it in my spare time, and in the last six months we've had our second child, which has kept me busy. Getting Just Flight on board as the publisher focused the development over the last few months to hit the release deadline, which has worked well – otherwise I keep adding features and never release the thing!

Is this a project that simply evolved from a hobby, or did you purposefully hide yourself away and devote every free minute to the project?

It's just a hobby, although my wife would argue I spend every free minute on the project!

Did you always have belief in the product? Early signs are that this is a really ground-breaking program for Flight Simulator and looks like it could breathe new life into it. Was this your intention?

I've always believed that Air Hauler would be the game I'd want to play – so to that end, yes. If other people like it and enjoy it, then that's excellent, but I wrote it for myself first and foremost. There's a balance to be struck between my personal desires and commerciality, however, for example toning down the landing performance checking – it was far more restrictive in the early days.
The realisation moment that Air Hauler might be pretty well received was after we expanded the testing team to about 20 people in October, and they started to rave about it – and once Just Flight came on board, it's been a rollercoaster ride ever since!

Are your thoughts turning to a sequel or do you have something else up your sleeve in the meantime?

My thoughts at the moment are focused mostly on sleep! However, there are already plans for the first expansion – whether it'll be an add-on, update, upgrade, separate product, I can't tell yet – but I'm doing the conceptual stuff for it at the moment. But in the meantime, I'm just enjoying Air Hauler and helping with support on the forums.

Can you give us a quick summary of Air Hauler's most salient points?

Air Hauler lets you run a virtual cargo company - and lets you fly the cargoes around either yourself, or using crew you've hired to your company. There's a world map showing jobs, airports and where your aircraft and pilots are to aid with planning.

Air Hauler has a robust financial model based on the real world, and you can purchase or lease aircraft, buy and sell new bases to operate from, employ pilots to help grow your empire, and even speculate on the stock market!

Air Hauler interfaces with Microsoft Flight Simulator to monitor your performance as you fly cargo around the world. Rough handling or dodgy landings will damage your cargo, so one eye on the clock and a steady hand on the yoke are both required!

As you fly between airports, the position of the aircraft are tracked so you always start where you last left the aircraft. You can even save a flight in the middle and come back to it later!

Is there anything you wanted to include that isn’t in there yet?

Fuel hedging (purchasing quantities in advance to protect against price rises) – that'll be in a future service pack, as will some form of ‘base’ or airport progression. I'd like to let the player build their base up from a portacabin to a corporate headquarters, and that will have benefits as regards purchasing/leasing/repairing aircraft and the number and variety of jobs which are available.

Is there a demo available of Air Hauler yet?

Not yet – but it’s coming very shortly now that it's been released! I'm hoping to have a demo version available by the end of April at the latest.

Did you have a team around for the development phase – beta testers etc.

Absolutely crucial to the development phase were the alpha and beta tester teams. The three musketeers – John, Skip and Dree – were the ones who drove the product on from a very early stage. We added about 17 other testers from last summer onwards, and through to release.

The team were instrumental in checking and discussing new features, and making Air Hauler both playable and fun – and I'm in their debt for all their hard work. We're a pretty tight knit team now, and they're still hanging around in the tester forums waiting for me to inflict something else on them!

What next? Are you taking time out, or is there anything else in the pipeline you’d like us to know about?

A couple of months time out, I think, while I spend time with the family, go on holiday, try and get time to do the IMC rating, and just make sure that Air Hauler is running smoothly for everyone – then I'll start back on development in earnest. Too early to say what that'll be (or more accurately, it's a secret!) however!