I was looking at the Elko sectional earlier as I saw the original CAM 5 route started there but it seems they changed the route before they built any beacons as the only beacons on the map appear to be coming from Reno and going along to Salt Lake City which appears to be CAM 18.
I was thinking about flying along to Portland and then Seattle after finishing my trip to Pasco the other day as Pasco really does seem more like a stopover place and not a grand final destination. Apologies to anyone who comes from the area and might read this 
So how come you guys started out with CAM 5 anyway? I was thinking maybe there’s more preserved examples still existing in the area or something like that? Whatever the reason it’s certainly a nice flight!
2 Likes
Just want to say thanks to all who have made this add-on possible, I spent a very satisfying Sunday afternoon flying the Stearman along the route. Had to finally to go to ground since the 30 Knot headwind was making progress a tad slow. Again thanks and I do hope more of these routes will come to,pass for the sim.
2 Likes
The whole project started through a discussion on a thread about recreating 1950s airports - MSFS 1950 - Historical Airports
I knew about the concrete arrows from previous digging about into the history of the airways and a discussion in that thread prompted me to go looking in the sim for three that survive south of Boise.
Sure enough they were there and so when Rob said he was interested in building the beacon sites, plotting the whole of CAM5 seemed the obvious place to begin!
As it happens, Salt Lake City was where Elrey Jeppesen set up his charts company after making notes on the routes he flew for Varney Airways, who had the contract for CAM5.
2 Likes
Thanks - we are glad you are enjoying it.
And belated thanks too to @Andylbooth, @PopsMcDaddyo and everyone else following the thread - I have just seen that we have hit 250 downloads in three weeks, which is amazing!
It’s great to hear that you are enjoying the challenge of the airway!
6 Likes
I think the choice of Pasco as part of the air system has to do with the fact that the Airways often followed the railroads, with which they were competing to take the mail.
The railroads in turn often followed the routes taken by the early explorers heading west, which had also been used by the stagecoaches.
Pasco was created as a railroad town in 1891 as part of the building of the Northern Pacific Railway and had been on the route taken by the 1805 Lewis and Clarke expedition to map the Western US.
Pasco then became the start point for the first scheduled, civilian, commercial air mail service, (CAM5) flown by Leon D Cuddeback, chief pilot of Varney Airlines, which had won the contract. Given the festivities that accompanied his flight, I imagine that the state’s post master and the city fathers had ambitions for the town to become more significant than it did, it part by being part of the airmail system.
2 Likes
Nice. So much history you can uncover just from some flashing beacons atop towers. There must be hundreds of stories like Pasco’s along the routes.
I’ve been doing a few test flights in the Boeing 247D and I think I’ll take her from Pasco down to Salt Lake City in one run. I wonder how many stops they made along the way. Guessing Boise probably got a mail drop but there’s a few towns with airports along the route. Can’t imagine they stopped off at all of them. Some of those strips probably started out as relief fields or maybe the towns built them up to try and get hooked up to the air mail system. Anyway I reckon I can do the run in the Boeing in 3-4 hours depending on winds and the number of stops I make on the way. Also tempted to start out in Portland and follow the Columbia River along to Pasco, flying down the river gorge could be quite fun.
2 Likes
That’s part of the fun. I bought the book ‘Wyoming airway pioneers’, by Starley Talbott.
Nice read. And terrifying…
To clarify, a significant number of pilots died, establishing the airmail routes. Bad weather, snow, wind, high mountain ranges, underpowered airplanes, lack of infrastructure and navigation aids. A (deadly) accident was often just around the next bend.
But they lumbered on, improved the situation where possible, and persevered.
The book is about the early history, initiated by an air race, organised by the US postal service, from the eastcoast to the westcoast, and back. Or vice versa, depending on the start location.
They had to fly back and forth, with payload, to avoid advantage from weather and prevailing winds.
Great stories
4 Likes
I have just turned up an article about Cuddeback’s first flight from Pasco to Elko via Boise. It includes a fascinating first hand account from him of the flight.
Bearing in mind that this before the beacon system was established, his only navigational aid for the Boise to Elko leg was “a little map Walter Varney [the ariline owner] had drawn on a postcard as I was afraid that if I lost my way for 5 minutes I probably would never find it again.”
It also interesting that he flew much higher over the flatlands than we currently understand the later pilots did, who were keeping the arrows and beacons in sight.
5 Likes
Looks like we need a horse addon 
Taking off from Elko at about the same time that Cuddleback left Pasco, was pilot Franklin Rose, who was to fly the route in the opposite direction. Rose, a former stunt pilot who had helped grubb out the landing strip, was excited about the new venture. He flew as far as the remote southwest corner of Owyhee County and was forced down by bad weather. He borrowed a horse, and with the mail slung over the horse’s flank rode into Jordon Valley. There he was given a ride to Boise where he delivered the mail to the Post office.
Kinda amusing how Cuddleback talks about the celebrations that went on but how he didn’t care for them. Dude just wanted his well earned rest!
3 Likes
Yep, I think integration with Red Dead Redemption 2 needs to be our next move! 
I have also just been looking into the Elko - Boise branch of CAM5 and it turns out that Rose’s forced landing partly explains why there are no beacons for it. By October 1926 it was decided to move the terminal point for CAM5 to Salt Lake City to make for a safer winter route. Apparently it was so successful that Elko was quietly dropped and SLC maintained as the start / finish for CAM5. Elko was then incorporated into CAM18 which ran all the way from Chicago to San Franciso.
4 Likes
Strevell ILF update
@RobCap1966 has been hard at work battling the lighting system for our Strevell Intermediate Landing Field and we think it is paying off - still very much work in progress but Varney Air Lines airmail pilots will soon have a new place to land.
Approaching Strevell ILF from the south east
The field laid out
White boundary lights, Green approach lights and Red obstruction warning lights
One of the white boundary lights
Night departure
4 Likes
They let this lunatic give the new landing field a strip. Had some fun doing touch and goes and only crashed twice. Or maybe thrice
It’s quite cool when you’re coming in to land, or taking off, and the beacon lights up your cockpit briefly
Also Spitfire because why not
5 Likes
Absolutely stunned that you guys did this! Fantastic!
2 Likes
Thanks so much but we have you to thank for the original thread that led us to try!
1 Like
AvGas for the Mail Beacon Gods!
5 Likes
Because we love the smell of AvGas in the morning…
4 Likes
Man this is a cool project! I always appreciate seeing simmers use the tools at our disposal to resurrect history… you guys have done good work here!
I’ve tried just enough of CAM 5 to be really impressed ;). I hope to get through the rest of it next week.
If work is continuing on ILFs and maybe other routes, I can probably offer some help. I’m useless at creating 3d models, but competent at the grunt work of placing other people’s models using the SDK haha. I’ve got a few bush sceneries up on .to.
Anyway, just thought I’d throw that out there if you’re still working on it. Either way, thanks again for a cool project!
4 Likes
Thanks. We are still working on it, and looking to expand the routes and network.
We are working on one ILF at the moment, but we need some more modeling to be done, and experience some glitches in some models, of the custom lights and the custom windsock.
And now it’s holidsy time, so not so much MSFS scenery building time.
But we will certainly keep your proposal in mind, because we can do with some help when we want to expand.
So how did you like the rest of the route?
2 Likes
Looks like I won’t get back to the sim before this weekend, but I’m looking forward to it.
1 Like
Thank you! This is quite cool, read about them last year and found the story fascinating! Would have not thought to add this to the sim, great idea and execution!
3 Likes
