All the way back in February of 2020 the Bush League crew made a trip to the Appalachian Mountains, visiting various grass strips between Winchester Regional Airport and Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional. The journey South along the Shenadoah Mountains was one of the most popular events in the series with many of the original participants returning later to continue challenging themselves as aviators and navigators. It is time to revisit to this amazing part of the country and see what other adventures the mountains hold.
We have created new places to explore near Winchester, inviting you to wander among the hollows and hills on your way to Cumberland Regional. Waiting for you to discover are farm strips hidden among patchwork of fields, ridge line locations to tightrope, a scenic approach across a river, and an “Easter egg” or two. This month’s event is on a special day, Tuesday, July 5th, starting at 8:00PM EDT (0000z). We hope you will be able to join.
Bush League Basics:
- Everyone is welcomed! Whether you’re an expert or beginner with flight simulators, radio communications, or navigation, etc., you’re invited! We’re a friendly bunch and enjoy learning from each other.
- Tonight’s event is designed to be low and slow. Think STOL.
- We encourage you to join the VATSIM network and use the CTAF frequency of 122.8 to announce positions. We will not be in communication with ATC unless you plan to extend your flight into a controlled airspace.
- We’ll also use the Downwindsim Discord voice channel for the event briefing, and also during the flight for non-ATC related chit-chat.
- As always, the main goal of these flights is to have fun and practice good airmanship. The event is intended to be VFR, so you are free to configure your weather and time of day as you see fit.
Route Information:
Pilots have the choice of departure airports. If you would like to fly in the new area, Winchester Regional (KOKV) or Cumberland Regional (KCBE) are excellent choices. If you wish to revisit some of the original event locations, you could start at Roanoke (KROA). I have included a link to that event for your planning purposes.
Destinations new to this fly-in include (but are not limited to) Taylors (WV68), Michaels Farms (WV17), Jucapa Farm (9VG9), River’s Edge Farm (38WV), Lost Mountain (WV06), and Eastview (WV67). These fields can be flown in any order you choose. If you want something from the food truck at the conclusion of your flight, you will want to plan Cumberland Regional as your final stop. All these airstrips in this month’s event are well marked on both the VFR sectional (free on skyvector.com).
Scenery Installation:
Airstrip Pack for this event: Bush League Backcountry Fly-in #33
Airstrip Pack for the previous event: Bush League Backcountry Fly-in #5
There are install directions located within the Airstrip Packs that will walk you through the process of adding these custom airports, as well as a custom osm and dsf files to the appropriate locations. The osm files helps appropriately smooth the airstrips. If you are unsure about this process, this tutorial might help. The dsf files ensures the forests are correct for the area.
Orthoscenery:
For X-Plane pilots, the scenery for this event has been designed to work with Ortho4XP, tile +39-79. ARC Imagery and NED 1″ DEM was used during development. For the original event, tiles +39-079, +38-079, +38-080, +37-079, +37-080, +37-081 were used.
MSFS users will find the area well rendered with no modifications necessary.