Learned about those in Aviation Legislation. I wanna say the first of these routes was Chicago to Denver.
You could be very right sir! I had read about the Chicago to St Louis as one of the early, if not the first "flare" route. Ever hear of "Barn" signs? The government used to pay farmers in the right locations to paint an arrow on the barn roof, pointing the direction to the closet town. I used to see a lot of "See Rock City" signs on barn tops, but I never saw one with an arrow on it. Mr. Taylor used to talk about the "railroad" maps, showing the different railroad companies routes and etc. He used to laugh about flying IFR,(I follow railroads), before the term IFR meant something else. I think I was born 20 years to late,(1934), that era of flying is appealing to me, barn storming around the country to pick up money and flying the mail in those days, wow!! While I am a product of the golden years of electronics, 55 to 90, pilotage navigating is still appealling as you had to use good judgement and common sense, not to mention the excitement of not knowing what was around the next cloud or mountain. Its really neat to follow your path on the ground using maps, observing objects on the ground as certain "way points", such as drive in theaters, double railroad tracks, water towers with town names on them and completing your flight as planned, especially if you could hit your "ETA" within 5 minutes on a 2 hour flight! Oh, well, back to the old dull GPS systems these days!
