I had FS2 on the Commodore Amiga 500 from Christmas 1988, so there is probably a reasonable chance that I visited KCMI. My memories of that bygone age are rather hazy......

Edited February 1, 20251 yr by Christopher Low

On 1/31/2025 at 9:59 AM, Rusty Spanner said:

the video at 720p?, seems odd to use such a low resolution

Gary's graphics quality has never been in the top league. but his version of KCMI is a lot better than the one from "FSXscenery" for MSFS, yes the name says it all 🤣, it's not even FSX quality.

https://secure.simmarket.com/fsxcenery-kcmi-champaign-urbana-msfs.phtml

in that version the tower and the FlightStar FBO are completely missing.

FSXscenery obviously has never been there and not even visited the Champaign airport web site, otherwise he would know better.

https://flightstar.com/

even Airforce One and Two (with Bill Clinton onboard) has landed there.

 

55 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I had FS2 on the Commodore Amiga 500 from Christmas 1988, so there is probably a reasonable chance that I visited KCMI. My memories of that bygone age are rather hazy......

I remember that too 😁

Although my first sim PC was purchased when I was already and adulto, and sold my Schmidt cassegrain telescope to buy the PC, a friend circa 1983 had an Amiga and fs2😁

18 hours ago, MM said:

I spent some time driving to and from Champagne-Urbana in those years – courting the girl with whom I have been lucky to spend these many years

 

18 hours ago, Little Jenny said:

The following Christmas I talked my parents into getting the disk drive and that was it for me!  I was totally hooked.  Living an hour from Bloomington/Normal at the time, it was so cool to be able to fly around central Illinois and of course Chicago.  I still live in the area so of course I have flown to many of the airports around here in MSFS2020.  The first addon for 2020 I bought was Frasca Field.  Fun little place to fly out of.  I'll definitely be grabbing UK2000's Willard (this is in fact the third dev who's done it, NMG and the basically freeware that is being passed as payware from MSFSScenery/FSXScenery

Thanks for sharing those memories, it’s amazing for me to learn of real people actually living down there on the ground in what for me remains some sort of magical childhood fantasy land on a par with Narnia !

Yes, I have that FSXScenery KCMI, rather basic but its main purpose for me was to get rid of all the trees which surrounded the runways in the default version which spoil the realism.

Going from the C64 to the Amiga with its internal disk drive and the introduction of scenery disks was a revelation, and I then discovered….California!

Remember those days of going into a physical software store and seeing scenery disks on the shelf , buying one and rushing home to explore the wire frame POIs

sorry accidental duplicate 

Edited February 1, 20251 yr by jon b

sorry accidental duplicate 

Edited February 1, 20251 yr by jon b

1 hour ago, jon b said:

 

Thanks for sharing those memories, it’s amazing for me to learn of real people actually living down there on the ground in what for me remains some sort of magical childhood fantasy land on a par with Narnia !

Yes, I have that FSXScenery KCMI, rather basic but its main purpose for me was to get rid of all the trees which surrounded the runways in the default version which spoil the realism.

Going from the C64 to the Amiga with its internal disk drive and the introduction of scenery disks was a revelation, and I then discovered….California!

Remember those days of going into a physical software store and seeing scenery disks on the shelf , buying one and rushing home to explore the wire frame POIs

Man, the days of going to a store to get a physical copy of a game.  I do miss em.

Gotta grab CMI later today and hop in Comanche or 152 and head over for a visit.  

Just out of curiosity......what are the taxiways/aprons/main runway made from? They are much brighter than almost any other airport that I have seen!