Bluegrass Airlines

January 2006

North Central Washington Mail Pilot

One of my first flight simulator “games” was “Solo Flight” 1984 by Sid Meier and Bill Stealy who formed Micro-Prose Software.

You could fly in Kansas, Colorado and Washington. In Washington you had 7 airfields and two VOR’s. Part of the game was a simulation called “Mail Pilot”.

The top half of the screen was a spot view from the rear of the aircraft, and the lower half of the screen was an instrument panel.

A description of the game and a copy of the manual are on-line at:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1008

Primative flight sim? I certainly enjoyed many hours flying around Washington State.

This months feature is flying the mail between several airports in North Central Washington State.

I used a Stinson SR-7 to which I added a VOR for navigation purposes.

Time	Town	Airport	Code	VOR or NDB	Elevation	Heading	Distance
12:00 noon	Moses Lake	Grant County Intl	KMWH	115.0	1184’	286	10 nm
12:13/12:15	Ephrata	Ephrata Mun.	KEPH		1276’	262	29 nm
12:35/12:37	Wenatchee	Pangborn Mem.	KEAT	111.0	1249’	003	16.2 nm
12:53/12:55	Waterville	Waterville	2S5		2641’	001	13.6 nm
13:05/13:07	Chelan	Chelan Mun.	S10		1263’	85	12.8 nm
13:18/13:20	Mansfield	Mansfield	8W3		2276’	347	39.6 nm
13:46	Omak	Omak	KOMK	219.0	1302’

I took off from KMWH at 12 noon, turned to 286 deg and climbed to 3,500’

Ephrata was visible soon after take off and was an easy approach.

Pangborn came into sight after I cleared the high terrain to the east.

Taking off from Pangborn I flew Northwest to follow the river north until reaching enough altitude to clear the mountains. I then turned to 30 deg until intercepting the Wenatchee 3 degree radial then turned north.

After I cleared the high terrain, I saw the Waterville airport and landed on RW 7.

Leaving Waterville I my heading was 330 deg until intercepting the 1 deg radial from Wenatchee, then I turned north to Chelan. I descended into the river valley and landed on runway 2.

Taking off to the north from Chelan I turned to 90 degrees and after clearing the high terrain began my descent. As I intercepted the outbound 20 deg radial from Wenatchee I turned left to line up for final at Mansfield RW 3.

The longest section is from Mansfield to Omak. I flew 345 deg and tracked the OMAK NDB when it became active. When the lost the signal of the Wenatchee DME at 60 nm, I knew I was only 10 mile to Omak. I descended into the river valley for a straight in.

At each airport I taxied to a hangar and dropped off two mail bags from Moses Lake and picked up two to go back to Moses Lake. I only spent 1-2 minutes at each stop, and never even shut down the engine.

Now I’m off for lunch and to make this web-page. But you can take the 10 bags of mail you picked up back to Moses Lake in time for the 4pm truck to Seattle.

After taking off track the 155 deg inbound radial to MWH VOR 115.00. The direct route is only 75 n. miles.