Greetings Folks;

I am fairly new to this forum and the flight sim world so looking for some guidance.

I am attempting to recreate U.S. Mail routes on FSX Steam for the genesis years if about 1918 through 1927 or so.  Specifically, has anyone already invented this wheel?  Are there scenarios already built to fly these routes?  Secondly, I am looking for a DH-4 to download and so far no luck on multiple sim sites like this.   Closest I have come is the DH-82.

Any pointers appreciated, Thanks

DBW

 

 

Hi DBW,

I have flown the old U.S. airmail routes from east to west coast in FSX but I did this using available modern day airports/airfields and navigated without using any modern radio navigation equipment. Instead I used dead reckoning and ground features to follow the routes. This is helped by having improved vector data such as that provided by Ultimate Terrain USA or Orbx Global Vector. A good weather engine also helps to add more realism to the challenge! Maps of the routes these pilots flew are generally easy to find in books or online. 

Although there may be some available, I am not aware of any addon scenery depicting period airfields as used by the airmail pilots in the 1920s. Many of the towns and cities on these routes have payware airports available for them but adding these could become a bit expensive when you consider the number of stops made by these pilots! So a better option, if you want an improvement on the default airport scenery, may be to use the freeware airport addons which are also available for most of these towns. A very useful source for searching for available airport/scenery addons is: https://www.freewarescenery.com/fsx.html

With regard to the DH-4, I think there is an FSX update of a freeware DH-4 developed for FS2004 available at Simviation.com but I have no experience of this. Other types used for airmail flights include the Curtiss Jenny and an FSX update of the default Jenny that came with FS2004 is available on the Ford Tri-motor website https://www.ford-tri-motor.net/curtiss-jenny.htm. The Boeing Model 40, introduced in late 1920s, was also used to fly mail and a fairly nice payware version of this has been produced by Golden Age Simulations allowing a suitably slow flight across the country!

So, although it may require a bit of imagination to visualise yourself over 1920s scenery, it is possible to get quite a lot of enjoyment from replicating these classic and sometimes challenging flights.

Bill

Edited November 5, 20205 yr by scianoir