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Having worked on Microsoft Flight Sim for about 11 years (and used it for 34 years and counting), Meigs Field always had a special place in my heart. A company called Orbx (no affiliation) has just released a new version of the airport as a scenery add-on for the sim, and it is stunning. Check it out in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35bVDqYFiqo
I landed at Miegs on the way to Oshkosh one year just to have done it before it closed. My wife told me I was NOT to try to split the antennas on the Sears tower after takeoff like I would try in FS.
I always enjoyed flying in and out of Meigs! Where else could you literally park your lightplane and walk a short distance into one of the world's largest cities. Meigs was so inclusive. I recall seeing ultralights there, next to Gulfstreams.
That all ended when Dictator Dick Daley decided he'd rather have a grassy park to name after his wife, there...oh well, that's what happens when the people get duped into voting for the wrong politician. It happened in Germany in the early 30's, and it can happen here this year...be careful who you vote for!!!
This is NOT an invitation to plug your political party/candidate or bash another! Go spout off somewhere else if you're so inclined...
Nice video, Hal thanks for posting it. ORBX does great scenery -- I've got all their North American regional scenery and a couple of their airports, too -- including so many little "clutter" items, such as dumpsters, traffic cones, animated people, etc. The "avatar walk" at the end is really great, and shows much of the detail they include.
That's pretty neat Hal.
It blows my mind that a mayor can go destroy an airport with no public notice. It is hard for me to understand how he got away with that without public consent.
Brings back memories of growing up in Chicago and going to Meigs. I remember the year after Daley pulled his crap, a vendor at OSH was selling effigies of Daley. I still have it hanging in my hangar.
Wow this brings back some flight sim memories! Before FS2004 I spent most of my time flight simming out of Meigs which makes me wish I had the chance to fly there for real. I just might have to download this and make it the default airfield for FSX lol.
Thanks for sharing Hal!
Wow, this is cool. I started flight simming around age 10 (I guess 1985-ish) with FS2 on my brand-spanking-new Commodore 64C, a black and white TV as a monitor, and an old Atari 2600 joystick for control. Even though I've never even been to Chicago, Meigs played a big part in kindling my love of aviation. It stayed my "default" take off location for many years. Without FS, I probably wouldn't be a private pilot today.
One of my favorite child-like novicey things to do was blast off out of Meigs, fly north past the Sears tower, pick up the localizer for one of the O'hare runways (probably a 27 something, I haven't looked at any charts lately), and shoot the ILS. I felt like a pro even if the needles were all over the place. Hey, it's not like there were any real OBSTACLES on the approach to worry about in the early FS versions.
I just recently jumped from casual X-plane 10 use to serious to P3D v3.1 use... I'm using it to supplement my instrument training. I'm thrilled with P3D so it might be worth supplementing it with this and some other ORBX stuff. Although I guess I won't be able to find any published approaches into Meigs on my Foreflight.... :/ ... thanks "Dozer" Daley.
ORBX adds greatly to the experience -- I've got all the North America regions and a couple of airports (even more detailed), and they have airplanes on the field, people (animated, even), and much more. There are even a couple of free trials available on their website, not time limited.
Note that the navaid and airport database in P3D is based on FSX's database (unless they changed for 3.1), and that dates back to 2005, or so. So runway numbers (and mag headings and course lines, of course) have shifted, plus runways have been added or removed since that time. Still, most charts in Foreflight will be helpful, if not completely accurate for P3D.
Fantastic stuff! Meigs will always be the most iconic departure in flight sim history! I remember first using and learning MSFS 5.1 with the Cessna 172. So many times I would take off from Meigs, fly over the John Hancock building (usually between the antennas) and land at O’hare! Great memories all to resurface with MSFS 2020!
I also grew up in Chicago and went to University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I had a flight from Champaign-Urbana to Meigs in a piper warrior one Friday in 1979 with three friends. Ceilings were right at 1000 feet and I was barely legal to fly in VFR. After I dropped my friends off, I took off on RWY 36 and made a standard left turn. This was towards the big buildings that were poking up into the clouds! Tower told me the pattern was right turns over the water. Made sense but they didn't tell me until after I was headed towards the city.Quote:
Originally Posted by gbrasch
I wasn't close to any buildings and was able to fly back South towards Champaign-Urbana. Just South of the city the clouds were broken and I was able to climb above them. Definitely a memorable experience for a fairly new PPL (I think I was 20 at the time with probably 60-80 hours).