Hi everyone,                                                                          
 
Be prepared to experience a new concept in Virtual Flight.... You will return in time to the mid nineteen twenties when many brave pioneer pilots risked, and often gave of their lives, in the quest to make long distance delivery of the mail by air the fastest and the preferred way to deliver the mail.
 
In the early days the mail service was only flown by day which gave no real advantage over the railroads which traveled both by day and by night. It had to happen at some time of course, and brave attempts were made to make the delivery of the mail by air a twenty four hour service. It was acknowledged as the only way to effectively compete with the railroad, and also the only way to make delivery of the mail by air a viable proposition for the future.
 
The story of the Airmail is long and makes very absorbing reading. A visit to
http://www.airmailpioneers.org will set you on the way to understanding what we are introducing to you. Two further addresses within the same web site will reward you with a wealth of information regarding the Airmail and hopefully whet your appetite for what we have in store. Those addresses are :-
 http://www.airmailpioneers.org/flightinfo.html
 http://www.airmailpioneers.org/flightinfo/directions.htm
 
What is our quest! It is our attempt to give you the opportunity to fly the DC-3 under the same conditions experienced by those pioneer pilots of the twenties. We obviously cannot reproduce exactly the conditions under which the pilots flew but I am sure that you will acknowledge that we have come as close as it is possible to get.
 
Al Gay and Johan van Wyk have toiled for months developing the skills necessary to create these flights. The 'groundwork' has literally been done and we are offering this trial flight to introduce you to a whole new way of flying.
 
OK, I will get to the point! Al and Johan have laid a network of light beacons and co-located NDB beacons (maximum range - five miles!) which you must use for navigating in the dead of night using nothing more than a flight description and the Mk 1 eyeball. To put it into the proper words, these are night flights flown in VFR conditions. You may use FSNavigator but only as a map. It is recommended that VOR's, NDBs and the aircraft symbol are switched off in FSNavigator to eliminate the temptation to use them.

There are several way to enjoy these flights and no doubt you will each fly them the way you prefer. A suggested way for those who want to hear the NDB but don't want to spoil the excitement by knowing the direction to the beacon is to remove the comma following the gauge name in the panel.cfg file and then resave the file. You will then hear the beacon but won't have any indication of the direction to it. Much more fun. If you are not sure what you are doing with the aircraft.cfg file then please leave well alone.
 
How do we fly these new fangled flights? After take off you will follow a sequence of light beacons that have been laid along the required route at suitable distances. Because the flights are flown at night there is very little, if any visual contact with the ground, so you must fly the allotted course at no less than the Minimum Enroute Altitude (MEA) shown on the flight descriptions.
 If your flying is accurate you will first see the rotating light beacon when you are within 10nm of the waypoint. You will hear the NDB ident when within five miles of the beacon. The ident you will hear is in Morse code and can be deciphered by referring to the relevant codes described in the flight description. After positively identifying the beacon (they are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., as were the original flashing light beacons.) you will over fly and then continue to the next beacon and repeat the exercise. When you arrive at the destination airfield there are no landing directions given. You must ascertain the local conditions and make your own arrangements for landing. As you will now see. These flights will demand your close attention. Boredom will not be a problem.
 
The beacons themselves when viewed at close quarters will be seen to consist of four rotating lights. Two are white and two are green. Experience will soon teach you how to spot these beacons. The beacon tower is a pyramid shaped structure. The radiation distance of five miles has been deliberately set to ensure that only accurate flying will allow you to confirm the Morse identification of the beacon.
 
This Trial flight from Reno, Nevada (KRNO) to San Francisco, California (KSFO) and return is just a single section of the original New York to San Francisco Transcontinental Route across the US. The remaining legs of that route will be added as soon as possible. As you read this, much work has already been done to extend the Night Airmail Flights.

An image has been included in the download to give you an idea of the enormity of the task Al and Johan are taking on. If you study the map you will see that the flights in this download are but a very small section of the overall network of mail flights. There is much work yet to be done but after enjoying flying these Night Flights you will will know what we hope to bring you in the near future. 
 
Numerous people have been involved with the preparation and testing of this Trial flight but the main thanks must go to Al Gay and Johan van Wyk for the unstinting and uncomplaining way they have accomplished this notable moment in the history of DC-3 Airways. Thank you to you both.
 
We anticipate that this will be the beginning of a whole new way of flying the old way. You will need to pay attention to drift angles when flying these routes, so dust off your E6-B calculators, virtual, digital, or real.

This version is for FS2002 only and shouldn't be attempted in FS2004, the differences between the versions of flight simulator require the beacons to be located at different locations.
 
Feedback in the form of Pireps, posts in the Forum or mail directly to any of the staff would be greatly appreciated. 
 
 
Norm Hancock
Sr VP DC-3 Airways.   


NOTE by Al Gay: 

Thank you Norm from Johan and myself for the praise. We both like to fly the great old DC-3 but a big part of our hobby is working with scenery as well.  Although some of it is quite time consuming we get the same feeling of gatitude in seeing others enjoy what we have done.

 I do want everyone to know that Norm has also played a very big part in that he has and will prepare all of the Flight Descriptions. This is in no way a small endeavour.

