Arrows Across America (MSFS2020)

Fly the Air mail

• Bare bones navigation from the dawn of commercial aviation…
• Flying really low and slow in all weathers, day and night, no autopilot required…
• Following in the slipstream of Leon D. Cuddeback & Elrey B. Jeppesen…

If this sounds like your kind of flying, then we might have something for you.

“Arrows Across America” recreates the visual navigation system developed to support the growth of the US Air Mail system between 1926 and 1934.

This involved building 51’ long concrete arrows, painted yellow with flashing beacons on masts, every ten miles along 34 Contract Air Mail (CAM) routes.  No radios, no ATC, no weather radars.  

So far we have recreated

• 10 CAM routes
• 868 individually placed beacons
• 88 custom ILFs
• Arrows and the beacon towers with their rotating beacons
• Generator sheds including the identifier text and the fuel tanks
• 20 custom hangers, with animated hangar doors
• Custom items to add life to the fields, like cars, trucks, furniture, posters, fuel pumps, radio installations, 
  animated flags and wind socks, water towers and airfield watch towers, boundary lights and runway markers

Brought to you by Dave James, Richard Blows and Rob Cappers.

Background:

Inspired by a discussion on a MSFS forum thread we have been recreating an original US Air Mail airway for the sim.

In 1926 the US Postal Service & Department of Commerce began contracting air mail routes that would eventually criss-cross the USA.

Each route was marked approximately every 10 miles by a path of 51' long yellow concrete arrows with flashing rotating beacons mounted on 51’ towers, interspersed with landing fields. 
The beacons have a generator shed and a fuel tank, and the Airway and Beacon number on the roof of the shed. The arrow points in the general direction of where the next beacon is.

Some surviving arrows are visible on Bing Maps, meaning that they are also visible in the sim, if you know where to look.

So, we have decided to recreate the whole 485 mile Contract Air Mail 5 (CAM5) route from Salt Lake City UT to Pasco WA, using original maps and research by aviation historians.

The route is mapped, 51 individually numbered beacon sites have been built to scale, with a animated rotating beacon, positioned precisely using the original sectionals & surviving remains.

If you want to find out more about the airway system, then these sites are a great place to get started:

Arrows Across America
thesurveystation

And for an account of how low you need to go to fly the mail check this interview with Elrey Jeppesen
Jeppesen interview