US Civil Airways, by Mark Thomas ... DC3-388

Print this Readme file for best understanding.

Thanks to Mark Thomas, you are about to embark on an exciting way to navigate your DC-3 in the US ... Along Civil Airways patterned after the actual 1940 system.

There were four networks of civil airways, Red and Green were East-West routes and Amber and Blue were North-South Routes. Each of these networks were further divided by a number, thus a pilot would fly Blue-1, or Red-3, etc., depending on the departure and destination cities.

Pilots were not restricted to a single airway and, for example, if they departed Kansas City, MO for Memphis, TN, the routing would be Kansas City to St. Louis on Green-3 (G-3) and then south from St. Louis to Memphis on Amber-5 (A-5).

The present collection of 304 flights, however, does not include any multiple-airway flights. If you would like to submit details on such a flight, including altitude information for both directions (see notes below on altitudes), we will try to post them. I have to say "try" because we can't commit, for example, to posting the new flight of Los Angeles to Miami, via Washington using airways Green-3 (G-3) and Amber-7 (A-7), no matter how briefly you can state it.

OK, to the details:

First, there is nothing to install. Simply print all the documents within this zip file.


This zip file contains four PDF files with full details of the airways:


Amber_v04.pdf
Blue_v04.pdf
Green_v04.pdf
Red_v04.pdf.

These files contain route details, but first you must decide which route to fly.

We have included three "Index" files. They are:

... Civil_Airways_Flights_v01.csv
... Departure_Airports.pdf
... Destination_Airports.pdf

The first file is a "CSV" file, a simple text file with commas separating each column. Open Excel or any spreadsheet, and then click "File-Open" ... select the file type of "text" in the window that pops up, and you will be able to "see" the CSV files. 

The file will load into Excel with the correct data in columns. You must adjust the column width to fit the data, since CSV files don't carry this information. Then save the file as a SPREADSHEET, not as a CSV file. You can now sort the data on any column.

The other two PDF files are already sorted, one by departure airports, and one by destination airports if you elect not to use the CSV file.

Select a desired flight, say it will be Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas.

Here are the steps.

1) Go to the Flight Index document and locate the flight Oklahoma City to Amarillo, Texas. 

2) Note that the suggested flight altitude is 8000 ft. 

3) The flight number is R-24-1. Use this number on your PIREP for the flight. This number also tells you which Airway you will be flying, "Red" and where to get the specific flight details.

4) Pickup the Red Airways document and locate the R-24-1 Airway information.

5) Flight information for this example flight appears on the left side of the Airways document since the flight is Westbound. The OUTBOUND Magnetic Course is 257, seen on the line with Oklahoma City on it.

6) The next line down, with Amarillo on it, shows an INBOUND Magnetic Course of 255. 

Let's quickly review why these two magnetic-course numbers are different. Normally, when plotting a course, you would open your Sectional Chart, draw a line from Oklahoma City to Amarillo, Texas and then determine the TRUE COURSE, TC. 

For this example flight, the TC is 264, measured from a Sectional Chart.

But we want the Magnetic Course, since we fly by Compass. The difference between True North and Magnetic North is called MAGNETIC VARIATION. If the variation is West, we add it to the TC to get magnetic course. If the variation is East, we subtract it from the TC for magnetic course.

The variation for Oklahoma City is 7 East, and for Amarillo is 9 East. For East variation we subtract.

... FSNavigator gives the Mag variation for every Navaid and Airport. Just lay the cursor over the symbol, and find the mag variation in the pop-up window.

If we are in Oklahoma City, the mag course will be 264 minus 7 or 257. If we are in Amarillo, the mag course is 264 minus 9, or 255.

So when flying OUTBOUND from Oklahoma City, we fly 257. When nearing Amarillo, we should be flying INBOUND at 255.

How do we do this?

Fly the first half of the leg, in this case it's 100 NM, at 257. Fly the second 100 NM at 255.

7) So for every leg of any flight, first look in the OUTBOUND column of the airport or VOR that you are leaving from for your initial mag course, then look at the INBOUND column for the destination airport or VOR for the final mag course. Change from the Outbound to the Inbound course halfway between those two facilities.

Note that the Outbound and Inbound mag courses are on two adjacent lines.

8) If Flying Eastbound, from Amarillo to Oklahoma City, read the right side of the Airways table, and READ UP.

For Eastbound note that Outbound from Amarillo the mag course is 075 and for Inbound to Oklahoma City the mag course is 077.

That's all there is to the two mag courses, and all of the information for any flight is on one of the Airways tables. Nothing to write down, just fly the outbound course until halfway to the next waypoint, then change to the inbound mag course.

A minute or two looking at the Airways Tables and the mag course that you must fly becomes very apparent.

OK, let's talk about flight altitudes, which are handled much differently that what you have done in the past. Actually, it's much simpler, too.

1) Start with the East-West airways, Green and Red. Don't worry about your mag course or your compass. If you are flying Red or Green Airways westbound, fly EVEN thousands of feet, 4000, 6000, 8000, etc., like IFR flights.

2) If you are flying Red or Green Airways Eastbound, fly ODD thousands, 3000, 5000, 7000, etc., again like IFR flights.

3) There is a similar rule for North and Southbound Amber and Blue Airways. If you are flying Amber or Blue Airways Southbound, fly EVEN thousands of feet, 4000, 6000, 8000, etc.

4) If you are flying Amber or Blue Airways Northbound, fly ODD thousands, 3000, 5000, 7000, etc.

5) OK, Oklahoma City to Amarillo is flown on the Westbound Red Airway, hence the 8000 ft., or EVEN, altitude.

6) This is just an explanation of the procedure. In practice, fly at the altitude suggested for the flight, without change other than climb and descent.

That's all there is to it.

Enjoy flying the 1940 US Civil Airways system, as developed for Flight Simulator by Mark Thomas. And be sure to fly using REAL WEATHER!

Post any questions to our Forum.

Charles Wood.
July, 2004

 


