US Rt 20 - the longest highway in the US - I'd love to see a Bush trip following it

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1

Growing up just outside Boston, Rt 20 kind of goes everywhere. But I had no idea until a few years ago (decades now? oh no…) that it’s actually the longest highway in the US, 3,365 miles, traveling from Boston on the east coast, through 12 states by the great lakes, through Yellowstone National Park, all the way to 1 mile from the Pacific coast in Newport, Oregon. And this year it’s reached 100 years old as a highway. A good bit of it is even older than that as it’s still called the Boston Post Rd in Massachusetts as a good portion of the post road from Boston to NYC.

I’ve long wanted to create a Bush trip following along the highway and stopping at various airports along the way.

Anyone else interested?

https://www.treehugger.com/take-a-classic-road-trip-on-americas-longest-highway-4864037

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@tgbushman ?

2

Maybe you could feed the data into an LLM and ask it to create a .pln file.

3

Ooh! That’s a great idea. I was also thinking of asking an LLM to put together a list of airports grouped by state within 10 miles of the highway or something like that. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but kept getting frustrated trying to put together a good list of airports.

4

Thank you for coming to my TED talk :smiling_face:

5

Thank you for inspiring me! And thank you Co-pilot
Edit: List edited to latest layout (Of course Co-pilot made a few mistakes)

Airports Within ~10 Mile of US Route 20 (Grouped by State)
Massachusetts
US‑20 runs through Boston metro → Springfield → Pittsfield

Logan Intl (BOS) — Boston (~2 mi from US‑20 terminus)
Hanscom Field (BED) — Bedford
Norwood Memorial (OWD) — Norwood
Worcester Regional (ORH) — Worcester
Southbridge Muni (3B0) — Southbridge (small GA)
Westover ARB (CEF) — Chicopee
Westfield-Barnes Regional (BAF) — Westfield
Pittsfield Muni (PSF) - Pittsfield

New York
Route crosses southern/central NY (Finger Lakes / Capital region)
Buffalo, NY Skyline

South Albany (4B0)— (Small GA)
Albany Intl (ALB)— within corridor band east of Schenectady
Frankfort Highland (6B4) - Frankfort
Hamilton Muni (VGC) - Hamilton
Syracuse Hancock Intl (SYR) — slightly north but corridor-adjacent
Skaneateles Aerodrome (6B9) - Auburn
Finger Lakes Regional (0G7)- Cayuga
Canandaigua Airport (IUA) — near Finger Lakes corridor
Greater Rochester Intl (ROC)— within ~10–12 mi band
Geneseo Airport (D52) — Geneseo
Le Roy (5G0) - Le Roy
Lancaster Airport (LKP / KBQR area) — Lancaster GA fields
Buffalo Niagara Intl (BUF) — Buffalo (just north but within corridor zone)
Buffalo Airfield (9G0) - Buffalo
Chautauqua County Dunkirk (DKK) - Dunkirk

(NY has ~323 airports total, so density is very high near the route) [mapscaping.com]

Pennsylvania
Short segment near Erie

Erie Intl / Tom Ridge Field (ERI) — Erie (very close to US‑20)

Ohio
Route hugs Lake Erie and crosses northern Ohio
Cedar Point Amusement Park
NASA Space Environment
Sports Force Park, Sandusky (Old KSKY Airport grounds)

Burke Lakefront (BKL) — Cleveland lakefront
Cleveland Hopkins Intl (CLE) — within urban corridor
Lorain County Regional (LPR) — Elyria
Sandusky County Rgnl (S24) — Sandusky
Toledo Executive (TDZ)
Toledo Express (TOL) — west end

Indiana
North Indiana corridor (South Bend / Elkhart / Gary)

Goshen Municipal (GSH)
Elkhart Municipal (EKM)
South Bend Intl (SBN)
Michigan City Municipal (MGC)
Gary/Chicago Intl (GYY)

Illinois
Chicagoland corridor

Chicago Midway International (MDW)
Schaumburg Regional (06C)

Iowa
US‑20 closely parallels major GA fields across the state

Dubuque Regional (DBQ)
Independence Municipal (IIB)
Waterloo Regional (ALO)
Webster City Municipal (EBS)
Fort Dodge Regional (FOD)
Cherokee Municipal (CKP)
Le Mars Municipal (LRJ)
Sioux Gateway (SUX) — Sioux City

Nebraska
Northern Nebraska corridor

O’Neill Municipal (ONL)
Ainsworth Regional (ANW)
Miller Field (VTN)
Gordon Municipal (GRN)
Chadron Municipal (CDR)

Wyoming
Route passes through central WY

Lusk Municipal (LSK)
Converse County (DGW) Douglas, Wyoming
Casper/Natrona County Intl (CPR)
Hot Springs County / Thermopolis (HSG)
Worland Municipal (WRL)
South Big Horn County (GEY)
Yellowstone Regional (COD) — Cody

Montana (short segment)
Only a small stretch overlaps

West Yellowstone Airport (WYS) (edge case depending on routing variation)

Idaho
Crosses eastern → central Idaho

Driggs-Reed Memorial (DIJ) (near corridor split)
Rexburg–Madison County (RXE)
Idaho Falls Regional (IDA)
Mountain Home Municipal (U76) / KMUO Mountain Home
Boise Air Terminal (BOI)

Oregon
Longest single-state stretch, many GA fields

Ontario Municipal (ONO)
Burns Municipal (BNO)
Bend Municipal (BDN) / nearby Roberts Field (RDM slightly north)
Madras Municipal (S33)
Albany Municipal (S12)
Corvallis Municipal (CVO)
Newport Municipal (ONP) — near western terminus

6

VFR Logan Intl (KBOS) to Newport Muni (KONP).lnmpln (37.5 KB)

Here you go. LNM lnmpln file of US Route 20. Around 190 waypoints, all within 4 miles of the route. No “legs” as such, just drop in to one of the many little (or big, whatever takes your fancy) along the route.

7

Is route 20 the same as I-80?

8

This is one highway I had planned to do on my Roads Less Traveled series, but I have a couple on the list ahead of it.

9

Simply stated, no. I-80 crosses the full state of PA but 20 only touches PA near Erie.

10

It’s co-signed (along with several other highways) many places east of Chicago, but to the west, 80 veers to the south quite a bit, ending up in San Francisco, vice Oregon.

11

US20 was one of my first long distance flights in FS2020 using the Just Flight Piper Arrow, though I went west to east just to be difficult.

I used “Road Trip USA” by Jaime Jensen for things to keep an eye out for, which has a bunch of other routes, including US-83 (Black Square Bonanza).

12

That’s a great idea. I actually had the same one, though. Before I came across this post, I had already put that idea into action and turned it into a bush trip. It’s not just a flight from A to B. The flight log includes lots of explanations about the landscapes (geology, ecology), the way of life, and the history. If you’re interested, please check it out here: [RELEASE] Bush Trip - 100 Years of U.S. Route 20 (Payware) | koschi61

The same applies to the legendary Route 66. You can find more details here: [RELEASE] Bush Trip - Route 66 - 100 Years of the Mother Road (Payware) | koschi61

13

Along similar lines. Have you thought of ‘Arrows Across America’? It follows the old airmail routes from the 1920s. The individual segments are very short due to the aircraft/navigation limitation of the day. In a way it is convenient; you can put down at the nearest, if you have to. I flew the route from NY to San Francisco with my H-160. You can download at Flightsim.to.

14

Oh, yeah, I LOVE Arrows across America.

I live near RT 20 outside Boston and drive it all the time. So it’s always intrigued me especially because I knew it went the length of the state. Then when I found out it goes through Yellowstone and across the country, I got super interested in exploring the route. I may drive it someday. And, yeah, The fact it’s called the Boston Post Rd I’ve always been fascinated by the mail and the first air mail routes and all that post WW1 aviation and exploration.

For more early MA aviation, check out Ruth Law. She used to run an air circus before WW1 where she’d race cars around horse tracks in a 1909 Headless Pusher.

15

Thanks for the tip—that’s a great idea. This route was already available as a flight adventure in FSX. Right now, though, I have other projects in the works. My friend Thomas from Nordheim Missions passed away suddenly a year ago. I finished the “Caribbean Nights” series that he started, and I’m currently working on continuing the “World Rivers” series. He also created some interesting routes through the U.S. along the Mississippi, Colorado, Yukon, and Missouri rivers. If you’re interested, you can find these BTs on the Marketplace.

16

Getting there in mapping out the route.

I had Gemini create a kml from the airport list it made for me, then downloaded the kml from Wikipedia for Rt 20 through each state. Then hand edited the files to make them consistent and add the pin graphic (for some reason the default was some big X). So I’m managing 13 files right now to create this route in Google Earth. Too many airports chosen technically, but, I like having a good amount of choices from big to local airports.

I cleaned up the list above and added links to airports in FS.to.

ScreenShot-260623-105918001
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For anyone interested here’s a link to the Google Earth .kmz file I’m working on

US Rt 20 Airport Flight Path

MSFS 2020 Flight Plan

Rt 20 MSFS Flight Plan

MSFS 2024 Flight Plan

Rt 20 MSFS 2024 EFB Flight Plan

These flight paths have all the airports (could even have a couple more along the way, but, at this point, eh). The idea being you can hand edit the files if you want and remove the airports you don’t need or want.

A couple of things I learned about 2024 EFB flight plans are:

  1. 2020 flight plans aren’t compatible. WT decided to “improve” the file format, and the Departure and Destination airports cannot also be waypoints in the list or the sim gets massively confused. I submitted a bug report on this, I don’t know if they’ll decide it’s “working as designed” or add a converter to the code.
  2. With that in mind, for 2024 EFB flight plan edits you do, be sure to follow the above rule and edit the Departure and Destination sections at the start of and end of the file appropriately.
  3. Apparently 2020 flight plans are used for “Missions” in 2024, at least according to the current SDK. Talk about confusing. Maybe that will change now that bush trips are coming back?
18

Took me a while to respond about the Boston Post Road. I remember that from when I was a kid. Early 1940’s, NYC. Had an uncle in New Rochelle, NY. To get there, my father picked up the Post Road in the Bronx. The original Boston Post Road started in lower Manhattan.

19

It’s the same Boston Post rd. The Boston Post rd veers off from Rt 20 at some point (I’m not sure where). But Rt 20 is known as the Boston Post Rd up where I live near Boston.