[Updated] Arrows Across America: fly the US Air Mail routes 1926 - 1934

[PipsPriller]

Thank you for the feedback! It has been fascinating putting it all together and we hope to have more for everyone soon.

[PipsPriller]

After a summer break we are working on a major update to the Arrows Across America airmail project. The next release will include:

• improved models and lighting
• three Intermediate Landing Fields (ILFs) on the CAM5 route from Salt Lake City to Pasco
• the complete CAM32 route from Portland to Spokane, via Pasco, including three more iLFs

CAM32 runs through the Colombia River Gorge, east of Portland. The lighting on that twenty-five mille stretch of the route was designed to enable the airmail pilots to fly under the fog that frequently blankets the top of the gorge, at an altitude of less than 250’ AGL

We hope that ongoing improvements to weather and turbulence will create additional challenges for you in flying that part of CAM32!

In the meantime, some work in progress images

CAM5 Locomotive Springs ILF, Utah

CAM5 Mary’s Cafe, next to Strevell ILF, Idaho

CAM5 Windsock demo

CAM5 Windsock demo

CAM32 Colombia River Gorge beacon

CAM32 Beacon Rock, Colombia River Gorge

CAM32 route map

We currently expect our third release to include CAM18 from Portland to Seattle, completing Varney Air Lines’ airmail routes. This will enable you to fly the mail for over thousand miles from Salt Lake City through the Pacific North West, navigating solely by arrow and beacon.

[Vibstronium]

those pics are “gorge”-eous!

[TheSupercalle]

Woo, looking forward to this update!

[PipsPriller]

Thanks both, too kind. Whilst you are waiting, I have dug up the old Varney Air Lines logo - feel free to adopt as your profile pic if you’d like!

[Megadyptes7635]

The current version conflicts with PuffinFlight’s brilliant We Love VFR - Region 2 mod because some modern day scoundrels put whopping big antennas and other masts in some of the locations where the venerable old beacon towers used to be, so you’d get a few overlapping models. But the new version in development fixes this via the magic of exclusion polygons so you’ll be able to safely run We Love VFR along with the Arrows Across America mod without any conflicts (hopefully!).

[PipsPriller]

And as background reading for budding airmail pilots, we can recommend this concise guide to the rules for using the airmail’s Intermediate Landing Fields: Intermediate Landing Field Rules. May 20, 1930 by United States. Bureau of Air Commerce - Books on Google Play

[PipsPriller]

Intermediate Landing Field update; we are now aiming for the following nine for the next release. All are located and laid out according to the information contained in the 1931 and 1934 Dept of Commerce Airway Bulletins.

CAM5 Salt Lake City to Pasco
Promontory Point, UT

Locomotive Springs, UT

Strevell, ID

Idahome, ID

King Hill, ID

CAM32 Portland to Spokane
Rufus, OR

Umatilla, OR

Sprague, WA

Cheney WA

[Megadyptes7635]

[RobCap1966]

[PipsPriller]

Update on the Update
Having made good progress we are now hoping to include additional content to v2 in the form of a tenth Intermediate Landing Field (Meacham, OR) and the northern most section of CAM8, from Portland to Seattle.

This means that you will be able to fly 900 miles by arrow and beacon all the way from Salt Lake City to Seattle, using CAM5 (yellow), turning left at Pasco onto CAM32 (blue) and then right at Portland onto CAM8 (green).

@RobCap1966 will be at the FS Weekend flightsim event in Lelystad, The Netherlands, this weekend demo’ing some of the new content (offline mode permitting!) - if you are there say hello!

[TheSupercalle]

This is amazing work!

[PipsPriller]

If you would lke to find out more about the pilots who flew the air mail, the Air Mail Pioneers website has a great collection of photos and stories. The content is focused on the period 1918 to 1927 when the US Air Mail Service was operated by the US Post Office, before its transfer to the Contract Air Mail system, but it underlines both the glamour and the danger of flying the mail.

It is also helping us to piece together some of the background for our project. For example, Airways Extension Superintendent S. S. Boggs, who we know surveyed the routes and landing fields for CAM32, seems to have been the same Stanhope S Boggs who had previously flown the air mail and on one occasion crash landed in a San Francisco street following an engine failure.

[wielxp]

Saw it today on fsweekend in Lelystad. Very nice work. i will try it out next week or so.
Thanks

[PipsPriller]

Excellent thanks, look forward to hearing what you think.

[RobCap1966]

Thanks, glad you like it.

[Trustdesa81]

Great news!

[PipsPriller]

I wanted to give a shout out to @roykro and the team behind FS Realistic Pro - their new, experimental first person view means that you can now climb to the top of our beacon towers to check the bulbs and admire the view. Amazing stuff - we have been joking about a maintenance mod for the beacon system - now it might be possible!

Really looking forward to seeing the improvements the team have planned.

[AceRain88196857]

Awesome Mod. I love it. However, I have a weird problem that I can’t resolve. I have MSFS loaded on my laptop and on my PC. The mod works fine on my laptop but doesn’t show up on my PC. I’ve reinstalled the mod several times, deleted the Community Folder and created a new one with only the mod and it still won’t show up on my PC. I’m thinking there is a setting somewhere that I’m missing. Any ideas why I can’t get it to work on my PC?

[draftingscotch]

This is an insanely cool mod; a huge thanks goes to the developers for all the research and work you’ve put into it so far. (And it sounds like the next update is going to be a great upgrade as well) I love getting lost in MSFS in an old, slow plane with an external “paper” map, so this mod is right up my alley, and I’ve also had a great time reading up on the history of the route that everyone’s posting here.

Yesterday, I took off in my trusty Curtis Jenny in Salt Lake City, and I managed to follow quite a few of the beacons across the lake, but then I started running into trouble with the beacons. I’ve seen others say that all (or nearly all) of the beacons are working correctly for them, but for some reason, for all of the ones I have seen so far, their flashing light has floated in the air next to them instead of on top of the tower.

Then, several of them in a row have only had a tower, with no arrow or building, which got me pretty lost , and for those same few, I saw the flashing beacon very far in the distance, but as I got a bit closer, it stopped flashing for me, which made it pretty hard to find.

Since the problem towers didn’t have a numbered building next to them, I’m afraid that I can’t say exactly which they were, but they’re the ones leading up to beacon 10.

Here’re screenshots of the two without arrows, beacon 10, which refused to flash for me, and beacon 11 with its floating light, along with the built-in map for a bit of reference:

#1 :

#2 :

Beacon #10::

The floating light:

Edit: After reading the thread more thoroughly, I see that others have already pointed out the mis-aligned lights on the towers and also the lights not working on 10 and 9, but I don’t think anyone else has seen that the arrows and building aren’t showing up?