2 hours ago, jcomm said:

Wouldn't be realistic, but my furthest memories of using a flight simulator are those of trying to land the Learjet at Meigs 🙂

I surely would like to get Meigs back...

I used to try and land the 737 at Meigs. Made it a couple of times, approaching at just above stall speed. 

I have a payware version of Meigs Field and it works ok with the DD landmarks. Even on their forums some have the issues and some don't.

 

The political shenanigans that resulted in Miegs Field being turned into a useless park probably cost Chicago billions in tourist dollars over the years.

2 hours ago, Sonosusto said:

I have a payware version of Meigs Field and it works ok with the DD landmarks. Even on their forums some have the issues and some don't.

 

Works for me as well, just need to get the priorities set right.

Try adding a "Z" in front of the Meigs Field name

57 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

The political shenanigans that resulted in Miegs Field being turned into a useless park probably cost Chicago billions in tourist dollars over the years.

What is the general opinion in Chicago today? My guess is that people rather have a park there than the airport. 

1 hour ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

The political shenanigans that resulted in Miegs Field being turned into a useless park probably cost Chicago billions in tourist dollars over the years.

The worst part about  closing it, is that they started to chop up the runways and taxiways in the middle of the night.

 

Edited November 9, 20223 yr by Bobsk8

1 hour ago, espent said:

What is the general opinion in Chicago today? My guess is that people rather have a park there than the airport. 

No idea. it is probably just ancient history for the locals now.

The supposed reason officially given for the final closure was Meigs Field presented a terrorist threat to the entire city. 

It was justified to the public on the basis that it was mainly used by "elite" business types flying into Chicago on business, who should be forced into using the same airports everyone else does rather than having a privileged airport, right near the city,  to land their business aircraft. (ironically the closure was actually the opposite, a scheme to make wealthy lakeside investors even richer)

 It was allegedly actually closed as a result of graft and corruption, purportedly it was an attempt to inflate lakeside real estate values. Apparently, wealthy investor friend's of mayor Richard Daley felt the airport was very detrimental to the value of their nearby real estate, whereas an exclusive parkland would instead elevate the value of their investments. Presumably many of these people had been secretly buying up "cheap" land near the airport, in the hope that Daley would close the facility and hence land values in the area would sky rocket, for years.

The whole thing had been controversial for a decade. Daley first ordered the Meigs Field be shutdown way back in 1996 but got no further than putting crosses on the runways before he was over-ruled by the State of Illinois who immediately ordered it re-opened.  Daley learnt a lesson from this and when he got a later opportunity to close it again (illegally) he made sure he destroyed the facility so no higher court could order it reopened.

By 2001 a deal had been brokered that basically prevented Daley from closing Meigs Field before 2026, at the very earliest, in return for other concessions/investments for Chicago.

However temporary problems with other parts of the deal (which eventually proceeded) left a very narrow window for Daley to unexpectedly close Meigs Field without any proper notice, quite illegally, in 2003 and steps were taken to immediately destroy the runway and make it impossible/expensive to reopen, hence circumventing any court order similar to the one that thwarted him in 1996.  A $33,000 fine was incurred from the FAA for illegally closing an airfield without proper notice or allowance for objections but it was too late for the FAA (or anyone else for that matter) to order it reopened, too much damage had been done. 

Daley felt it was worth the fine to get the airport closed.  Basically the Daley administration knew they were closing the airport illegally against strong public objections, and a court would likely reverse the closure - but decided to cop the fines in return for taking a small window of opportunity to get the airfield closed and do sufficient damage to make it impractical for any later courts to order it re-opened.

The whole thing was a rort to inflate real estate values to help out friends of the Mayor who had bought up cheap lakeside land near the airport.  Your typical real estate rort where investors with political influence buy up real estate near a detrimental feature like an airport, speedway, theme park etc and then lobby to have that feature shutdown.

 

 

Edited November 10, 20223 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

Another screenshot. Still not much to see

I don't usually like fake stuff in my sim but for this I make an exception...will be so neat to fly out of there again.

With this and Champaign-Urbana airport we would have the old-school FS starting points.  Some of you may not realize, I believe Champaign's airport -- Univ Illinois Willard  -- KCMI -- was the starting point for SubLogic FS-II or at least it was in my version.  Not Meigs.  Meigs came later.   I believe Bruce Artwick had some connection with U of I but I can't remember what it was.

15 hours ago, edpatino said:

Probably it had been announced before, but I didn't know until this early morning, Meigs Fields in Chicago is supposedly coming back next Friday with SU11.

It was the default airport in FS for years:

https://twitter.com/MSFSofficial/status/1590051827298754560?s=20&t=Guqjr5KldO_K4ePp3vJ-Og

Will it be optional through the Marketplace or embedded within the rest of the update?. We'll see...

Meigs was the first field at which I landed successfully in the original MS FS. And at the time in 1982 I held multi and IFR ratings flying mostly a Bonanza out of OJA at Weatherford, Oklahoma. A year later my father-in-law and I flew into Meigs from Griffith-Merriville Indiana (05C) in a 172.  There was quite a difference, of course, but very interesting in any case.  I have made it a objective to complete that filght in each flight simulator I have flown since.  All MS FS versions; Flight Assignment:ATP; Pro Pilot, Fly, and now MSFS 2020. (note: I never adopted x-plane or P3D due to my aging system at the time(s),  There is already a Meigs available for MSFS.  I hope Asobo does it justice.

It has for me become a rite of passage for each new simulator. And screw you Mayor Daily_{2 (note that is subscript)}

 

Edited November 10, 20223 yr by fppilot

Adding this airport makes scenery less realistic.

So, but what other airports come with SU11?

13 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Adding this airport makes scenery less realistic.

So, but what other airports come with SU11?

No! It overrules a gross misjustice that the real world is unable to now correct.

 

Edited November 10, 20223 yr by fppilot

2 hours ago, Mace said:

I don't usually like fake stuff in my sim but for this I make an exception...will be so neat to fly out of there again.

With this and Champaign-Urbana airport we would have the old-school FS starting points.  Some of you may not realize, I believe Champaign's airport -- Univ Illinois Willard  -- KCMI -- was the starting point for SubLogic FS-II or at least it was in my version.  Not Meigs.  Meigs came later.   I believe Bruce Artwick had some connection with U of I but I can't remember what it was.

Well, if you'd want to go looking for the cradle of (MS) Flight Simulator the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is where you'd end up. Right there in one of the backrooms where  computer engineering student Bruce Artwick and some of his enthousiastic friends gave birth to what he would then call "a versatile computer generated dynamic flight display" which he would then turn into the first flight simulator program for the Apple II some time later. The rest sure is history.

Living in the Netherlands and being an avid aviation enthusiast and hobbyist one of the most exiting days of my life was to be able to trade my Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K for an Atari 1040ST and buy Sublogic Flight Simulator II (still have the booklets). IIRC there were 4 airports we could fly to from the main airport Champaign (well, just a grey area with a few runways of course), to the east Danville, to the south/west Decatur, to the north/west Bloomington and, to the north, my favourite just because of the name, Kankakee. All still magical names for me because, unlike now in our beloved MSFS virtual flying world, i had to imagine them. And how beautiful they were !!  (later on Charlie Gulicks books "40 great flight simulator adventures" and " 40 more...."  helped my imagination a lot )

Yes, Chicago was not there yet let alone Meigs. And Internet was not there neither yet so i had to travel to Amsterdam and visit my fav computer store to see what was new on the Flight Simulator shelf. Boy! Those were the days ! 

When Meigs became available ( FS5 ?...) it became my home airport instantly and while i haven't even been in the USA for real and never heard of one Richard M. Daley i was more then shocked to read about his terrorist action at the Merrill C. Meigs airfield. MY Home Airfield for god sake! The Nerve ! 🤬

I could not let this go by without making some sort of a statement in a flightsim related forum depicting spoiled little brat Daley in his little toy caterpillar bulldozing my beloved Meigs. A picture tells a thousand stories, éh ? 

Btw, thats a sceenie of Meigs' main building in P3D v4, my fav flightsim before our whole flightsim world went upside down a few years ago. And sure, if we didn't have it already (freeware at flightsim.to) i'd welcome back Meigs in MSFS with a big smile ! 

Edited November 10, 20223 yr by Javiz

Interesting reading. You would have to be of a certain age and into Flight Simulator through the early 90s to get the significance of Meigs and Flight Simulator. That is where your FS world started back in those days. It would be hard for someone today to imagine there only being a few airports even in FS, but always starting lined up at Meigs. Green ground and gray runways. You would take off and try to land at O'Hare and then make your way back. The training lessons were centered around taking off and landing at Meigs. Count me in for liking the idea of having Meigs back in FS. Although, I also understand how many will scratch their heads and think it is weird. You had to be there.

It's also amusing when I think now of how sparse those early versions were, but absolutely magical. You also knew it was just the beginning. Each new version progressed in leaps and bounds (you always had to buy a new computer though because the one you bought the previous year can't handle the ram needed and the processor is too slow). 🙂

30 minutes ago, rjquick said:

Each new version progressed in leaps and bounds (you always had to buy a new computer though because the one you bought the previous year can't handle the ram needed and the processor is too slow).

Yup... after 1984: Microsoft Flight Simulator and IBM PCJr..  came 1988: Microsoft FS3 and the IBM PS2 Model 30-286 with VGA graphics..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_30

Nice machine... and much improved graphics.. but still flying out of Meigs 🙂

Edited November 10, 20223 yr by Bert Pieke