Best if you print this document.

If you have information, including schedules, on a Regional Airline anywhere in the world that flew DC-3s we invite you to add its schedule to this webpage.

Here are the guidelines for submitting a new Regional Airline. Although it looks like a lot of steps, after doing one flight you will zip through them in no time at all.

1. Tell us briefly about your Regional Airline, including a URL if possible, before starting any work. Although unlikely, we don't want two pilots submitting information on the same Regional Airline.
   
   We define a Regional Airline as one that has about ten to thirty one-way flights.
   
   
2. Once approved, we request four items:

• A document with a written description of each flight ... see details and examples farther below.
  
• An FSNavigator flight plan for each flight. You should save this in the "FSNavigator 3" format so that it will work with ver 3 or ver 4 FSNavigator programs.
  
• A link to a website with information about the Regional Airline or a brief description of your own.
  
• The airline's logo usable for our schedules page. The present logos are all 124 pixels in height, and vary from 268 to 372 pixels in width.
  

We will work with you if any of these present difficulties. Our goal is to post additional Regional Airline Schedules, not to put roadblocks in your path.

FSNavigator Flight Plans

1. When selecting airports try to avoid the behemoth, International airports with their 10,000 ft. parallel runways. Airports of that size did not exist during the era of the DC-3.
   
   Using FSNavigator search the area of the selected city for a suitable airport. Airports with the designation "Municipal" are frequently the original airport that served a city and make a good choice.
   
   I usually start at the MS Aircraft directory and do a city search, jotting down all the airports with an ICAO Code that begins with the letter "K" ... for the US. Then I check out each of them for suitability.
   
   There are rare occasions where the best airport is not a "K" code (T27 for El Paso, Texas, for example), so keep your eyes open when in FSNavigator doing the airport search.
   
   
2. Start and end the FSN Plan at the AIRPORT, not at a Runway. Do this by clicking on the small brown dot in the aircraft diagram in FSN then clicking "To Flight Plan." See "Tips" below.
   
   We avoid designating runways since so many pilots now use "Real Weather" which will dictate the correct runway. Others may choose whichever runway is optimum.
   
   
3. Try to minimize the use of VORs which were only becoming popular towards the end of the DC-3's career.
   
   
4. If an NDB is past the destination airport, select the NDB and send it to the Flight Plan. Then, in the Flight-plan" section of FSN at the top of the screen, right-click that NDB and designate it as a "bearing point." This provides the directional information that the pilot must fly, and you would still select the airport with FSN which will provide the distance information.
   
   Place the Bearing Point in the FSN plan immediately before the destination airport. Once you give this a try you will see how it works.
   
   
5. Take note of the range of the Navaids as you designate them. In FS2002 and FS2004, most NDBs have a range of 38nm, although some are higher.
   
   It's perfectly OK to designate Navaids farther apart than their range. For example, two NDBs could be 60nm apart. The pilot would then fly from NDB "A" towards NDB "B" using Dead Reckoning until "B" was received. More on this in the "Flight Description" section below.
   

FSNavigator Tips

Here are some FSN techniques that I use which greatly speed-up creating flight plans. They are best shown by working through an example flight.

1. Create a flight where your DC-3 is at 10,000 ft altitude.
   

• Set the Autopilot at 10,000 ft. We don't care about the hdg, any will be OK. We are just going to use the aircraft as a marker in FSN.
  
• Takeoff from any airport you wish, climb to 500 ft AGL, then Pause the flight.
  
• Switch your Flight Simulator to the "Map Mode" ... Alt W-M.
  
• Note the box on the left of the map labeled "Altitude" ... Highlight the number inside that box, and enter 10000, then click OK. Your aircraft is now at 10000 ft.
  
• Save the flight as "airborne_10000_ft" for future use.
  

2. Locate airports of interest using FSN. Let's look for "KPVC" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and "KHFD" in Hartford, Connecticut, for our proposed route of flight.
   

• In FSN, at the top left, there is a window with a check-box labeled "Id." Next to that check-box is the word "inputline"
  
• Tick the check-box to place a check-mark in it.
  
• Highlight the word "inputline" and overtype it with KPVC then hit Enter.
  
• In the window below will appear the airport information for Provincetown.
  
• Right-click the "Airport" line in that window and select "To Flight Plan."
  
• In the flightplan window, double click on the KPVC airport entry that just appeared. This will center your FSN map at Provincetown.
  
• This will also be a good time to move your 10,000 ft airborne aircraft over the airport. Your Flight Simulator should be Paused, then Right-click the KPVC entry and select "Move Aircraft to here."
  
• Now similarly locate Hartford, Connecticut, KHFD. Return to the window that you searched for KPVC, overtype KPVC with KHFD and hit enter ... again, you will see the desired airport info in the window below.
  
• Right-click on the airport line and send that to the flight plan.
  
• Now you have a flightplan showing KPVC to KHFD, spaced 110.3nm apart. This is a good time to initially save the flightplan. Remember to save it using the FSNavigator 3 format which you can select when in the "save as" window.
  

3. Select appropriate Navaids.

• Begin looking for NDBs along the flight path. I usually turn off the VOR locations by clicking the VOR symbol in the vertical bar on the right of the FSN screen. I also find that the light-green NDB symbols are much more visible with an FSN background color of blue or black ... change with Options-settings in the FSN vertical bar (Not across the top of the screen which are MSFS tabs).
  
• Since you moved the aircraft over the airport, KPVC, it is only necessary to lay the cursor over any Navaid of interest to determine its distance from the aircraft, and thus the distance from the airport, KPVC.
  
• Let's begin by selecting IHM NDB, 220.0, 43.9 NM from KPVC. Right-click it, send it to the flight plan. Then go to the flight plan window, cut it and then paste it in between KPVC and KHFD.
  
• While in the flight plan window, right click on the IHM NDB line, and move the aircraft to that NDB. Make a note of the exact course to this first Navaid from the airport ... 280deg.
  
• Now search for the next Navaid. I selected HF NDB, 244.0; 67.7nm distant and just south of KHFD. HF NDB is also beyond reception range from IHM NDB, so again note the course to that NDB, which is 266deg. Send HF NDB to the flight plan, then cut it and paste it in between the IHM NDB and KHFD.
  
• Note that the Last leg of the flight plan is 004deg for 6.1nm.
  
  Note also that the actual distance between KPVC and KHFD is now 117.4nm.
  

4. Altitude Information

• You may provide altitude information, or not. It is your option.
  
• If you do provide altitude information, observe the hemispherical rules:
  
  • If the course is 000deg to 179deg, and the aircraft is more than 3000 ft. ABOVE THE GROUND; fly at ODD thousands plus 500 ft., such as 3500, 5500, or 7500 ft.
    
  • If the course is 180deg to 359deg, and the aircraft is more than 3000 ft. ABOVE THE GROUND; fly at EVEN thousands plus 500 ft., such as 4500, 6500, or 8500 ft.
    
  • A deranged westerner devised the memory aid of "Easterners are Odd."
    
• If you do provide altitude information, please be certain that it is correct. Incorrect altitudes are about the number-one error on our flight plans.
  
  There are two ways to accurately determine an acceptable flight altitude:
  
• By reference to real-world aviation charts:
  
  • Minimum Enroute Altitudes (MEA) from "IFR Enroute Low Altitude Charts."
    
  • Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA) from "Sectional Charts."
    
  • These are US Charts ... similar charts are available in other countries.
    
• By actually flying the route. The best way to do this is to estimate an appropriate altitude, depart from the originating airport, and when at altitude, change the simulation rate to either 4X or 8X, Alt-O-M, then continue the flight until it's time to begin the descent, then switch back to "Normal" Simulation rate for the descent, approach, and landing.
  
  No matter the method, a minimum safe altitude provides at least 1000 ft. clearance above the highest obstruction enroute.
  
• If you do include altitude information, you should also include it in the FSN plan. Sr. VP Norman Hancock wrote an excellent tutorial on FSNavigator in his charter document which you can download here.
  
  That document clearly explains the procedure as well as other useful FSN features.
  

The Written Flight Description

You're on the home-stretch, now. Two examples and you'll be ready to go. If you have Microsoft Excel you will find it easiest to prepare the written flight descriptions because of its natural rows and columns needed for tables.

Set the page-setup to "Landscape" to print across the wide dimension of your paper.

We will begin with a very simple flight from Phoenix, Arizona, KIWA; to Tucson, Arizona, KRYN. All NDBs are within range of the one before it and the last NDB is on the landing field. We will leave it up to the pilot to determine the best cruise altitude.

Flight	NM	From	To	Description	From-To
SW_XXX_01	76	Phoenix	Tucson	Dep Phoenix 145deg to AVQ NDB, 245.0; to RYN NDB, 338.0; on Field, Land Tucson.	KIWA-KRYN

The details:

• First Column ... SW_XXX is the Number for this Regional Airline, where XXX is your Pilot Number. The "SW" informs us that it is a Regional Airline. The last two numbers, 01, is the flight number of the Airline's Routes.
  
•  NM is the distance from departure airport to the destination airport in Nautical Miles. Do not enter that number until the FSNavigator flight plan is 100 pct complete.
  
• The From and the To are the CITIES, not the airport names.
  
• Description
  
  • Begin every leg with the words "Dep (city name)"
    
  • Then give the course to the first Navaid. The Navaids most likely cannot be received while the aircraft is on the ground and this instructs the pilot which direction to head for the first Navaid.
    
  • If the next Navaid is within range then it is not necessary to give the direction to it since that will be known as soon as the pilot tunes to its frequency.
    
  • Note that we indicate that the last NDB is on the field at the destination airport in this case.
    End every flight description with "Land (City Name here)"
    
  • The last column is the ICAO airport codes for the departure and destination airports.

The second example will be for the flight that we created above, Provincetown to Hartford. We will assume a 4500 ft cruise altitude, also.

Flight	NM	From	To	Description	From-To
SW_XXX_02	117	Provincetown	Hartford	Dep Provincetown 280deg DR to IHM NDB, 220.0; and climb to 4500 ft; DR 266deg to HF NDB, 244.0; then 004deg for 6nm, Land Hartford.	KIWA-KRYN

Additional Description Details

• Since the first Navaid, IHM NDB is beyond its reception range, we must fly by Dear Reckoning on a course of 280deg until the NDB signal is received. Then direct to the NDB. The "DR" informs the pilot that Dead Reckoning flight is necessary until the Navaid is received.
• Same situation as above when heading towards the second Navaid which is beyond reception range. We instruct the pilot to fly by Dead Reckoning, DR, a course of 266deg until receiving HF NDB.
• Note the last course, from HF NDB to the airport. It is 004deg. ALWAYS use three digits when specifying a course.
  

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