INTRODUCTION

Newcomers to Microsoft Flight Simulator may not appreciate the significance, but for many years Merrill C. Meigs Field (KCGX) was the most important airport in the (virtual) world. Whole generations of flight simmers learned to fly on its single runway 18/36 due to it being Flight Simulator's default airport, the one that always came up each time you started up the sim. At least until you became a sim "expert" it was typical to start flights right there at Meigs. Consequently, many flight simmers have fond memories and warm feelings about that little airport, which is now lost to us.

Back in the early 1990's when I started my real world flying it was still possible to visit the real Meigs Field and several flightsim friends decided to do that, in my recently acquired Piper Archer II. It would be a great adventure and a pilgrimage to an airport that was important to the three of us. I know I had done many circuits of the Meigs pattern and had used it for a great deal of my own basic flightsim training so actually landing on the real thing would be a treat.

This is the story of that flight, a long weekend adventure from Massachusetts to Illinois with stops along the way, interesting sites, mixed weather and of course the high point, landing at Meigs.

GETTING STARTED

At the time of this trip I was based at Norwood Memorial Airport (KOWD), located southwest of Boston. Norwood was where I had done my private pilot training and thus where I had done endless circuits of the traffic pattern in the real world. The plan was to depart KOWD after work Friday evening and return late on Sunday.

In mid July the sun stays up late so we departed in full sunshine in the late afternoon. We wanted to get as far west as possible the first evening and then explore new territory farther west on Saturday. The Archer has enough fuel to fly for about five hours but I'm not comfortable sitting in one position for that long and so we planned considerably shorter legs. First stop was about half way across New York state at Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport (KITH) for a quick fuel stop and to stretch our legs.

Back in the air for one more leg and things started getting interesting. Far off in the distance to the southwest we could see flashing lights. Someone using up their 4th of July fireworks? Nope, fireworks of a more natural sort--lightning. We were seeing storms that were 50 to 100 miles away and actually beyond where we were headed (fortunately!).

This leg was slow going too, due to headwinds. It was a quiet night so a number of planes asked ATC for a readout of their groundspeed. I remember one guy in a Piper Cub who was making only about 30 knots!

Our slow progress almost became a problem. Our destination for the evening was Erie International (KERI) in Pennsylvania, out on that little piece of Pennsylvania that touches Lake Erie. At this time they were doing airport construction at night and the airport was closed late at night. We had planned an early enough arrival but the headwinds slowed up down so much that we arrived after closing time. Fortunately, ATC knew our predicament and the airport tower did let us land. A nearby motel provided lodging for the night with plans for an early start the next morning.

SATURDAY

The big day started out a bit gloomy, kind of hazy but not bad enough to keep us from continuing westward (especially when one of the pilots is instrument rated). While waiting to depart Erie we watched the Goodyear blimp pass over the airport.

The most direct route would take us over the Great Lakes, but we stuck to flying along the shorline. Passing over Cleveland I can't help noticing how much Burke Lakefront Airport reminds me of Meigs...the same sort of small airport out there on a lake next to a major city.

Our first stop was Branch County, Michigan (D96) for fuel and lunch. This isn't exactly in a straight line with our desired route, but a secondary goal of the trip is to land in as many states as possible and reaching Michigan requires only the slightest of detours. What a great find this place was. The restaurant was on the far side of the airport...just taxi through the field of corn and park right at the restaurant (adjacent parking areas for planes and cars!) The food was good too.

But now we're getting close, it's the final leg to our primary goal. We again head off west and before long reach the shore of Lake Michigan. Again, the most direct route would be straight across the water, but we divert south and follow the shoreline. Nearing Chicago we fly over Gary, Indiana, and I'm struck by the size of the steel mills along the shore...huge buildings with giant chimneys. It's hard to gain a perspective of just how big things are until you notice the little dots next to the buildings, which are in fact rail cars and not little at all!

We're getting close now and even with the haze we can soon see the Chicago skyline and the beautiful airport on the lake that is our goal. Flight Simulator always started you on Meigs runway 36 but today the winds are favoring 18 so the tower instructs us to enter on a left downwind over the lake east of the shore. After doing so many touch and goes at the virtual Meigs it was odd to find that touch and goes are not allowed at the real one! They did allow a low pass instead, so we did that and went around the pattern again and landed.

Wow, we're here! It's hard to believe, but we make sure to get some photos and then head into the terminal to check in. The bad news is that the airport has a rather high hourly parking fee. The worse news is that the skies to the west are looking ominous. Since we're paying for parking by the hour we make the most of the one hour we paid for but decide to beat a hasty retreat before the meter runs up any higher on us.

Next stop, nearby Lansing Municipal Airport (then 3HA, now KIGQ) a friendly non-towered field with no hourly parking charges! With the weather coming at us we needed to plan an escape and pick a place to spend the night. The choice was Fort Wayne, Indiana which despite being a large international airport was actually quite small plane friendly and best of all offered sleeping accomodiations walking distance from the plane. So off we set in the hazy, cloudy weather and before long were at Fort Wayne where 12,000 feet of runway made landing no challenge.

SUNDAY

During the night the storms we had outrun caught up to us and there was some spectacular thunder and lightning. It was good to be safely in a hotel room! The morning dawned dry and though it was still cloudy and hazy it was good enough for us to continue on our way.

The first leg was a short one to Clever Airport (PHD) in New Philadelphia, OH. I guess you have to be clever to have a PHD right? Or I suppose the code is just derived from "Philadelphia"...

Anyway, the goal was breakfast and the results were excellent with a nice little restaurant right on the field and in sight of where we parked the plane. Somehow we were doing very well for dining on this trip! With pilots and plane fueled it was off again heading east.

From New Philadelphia we could have continued east into Pennsylvania but looking at the map it was noted that just a slight detour to the south would allow for landing in an additional state--West Virginia. The state outline is rather odd, with a spike jutting north between Ohio and Pennsylvania and with a good size airport at Wheeling right in that spike, that's where we headed.

This was a quick leg but worth it. The airport lobby had a nice little aviation museum and we also got to watch a C-130 doing touch and goes. But we did need to continue so after looking around for a while we again headed east.

Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania was the destination for lunch. This is a good sized airport and had a restaurant right on the field, meeting our needs for a quick stop. I've since been back to this area several times by car to feed my railfan needs; adjacent Scranton is home to Steamtown, a national park built around the original Scranton railyard. Too bad you can't railfan while sim flying, like I sometimes do while real flying.

At this point home territory is only a short distance away, and it's only one final two hour leg back to Norwood after a great weekend of flying. This is still the longest trip I've taken in the Archer and one of the most memorable. Maybe you'll want do duplicate all or part of it, or at least visit Meigs Field.

FLIGHTSIM SCENERY

Most of the airports I flew to on this trip do not have add-on scenery available. Of course, matching the real world, Meigs Field does not exist in the FSX and FS2004 default scenery but there are a number of freeware options that will let you add it back. In addition, I found scenery for Erie (KERI), Fort Wayne (KFWA) and Wilkes Barre (KAVP) in the FlightSim.Com file library.

HISTORY

Meigs Field has a lot of interesting history. Located on Northerly Island, the land it was on is actually man-made and its first major use was for the 1933 World's Fair. You can learn all about its history at the Friends of Meigs Field web site:

http://www.friendsofmeigs.org/html/history/meigs_history.htm

FLIGHT PLAN

Date            Start/End       Hours   Notes
--------        -----------     -----   --------------------------------------
07/12/93        OWD/ITH         2.9
07/12/93        ITH/ERI         2.1     Erie PA - lightning
07/13/93        ERI/D96         2.9     Goodyear blimp at Erie
                                        Great restaurant at Branch County MI
07/13/93        D96/CGX         1.3     Along Lake Michigan, over big factories
                                        in Gary IN, to Meigs
07/13/93        CGX/3HA/FWA     1.6     Brief stop in Lansing then to Fort
                                        Wayne for the night
07/14/93        FWA/PHD         1.4     Breakfast on field at Clever Airport,
                                        New Philadelphia OH
07/14/93        PHD/HLG         0.6     Wheeling WV. Nice little museum in
                                        lobby. C130 doing touch and goes.
07/14/93        HLG/AVP         2.1     Wilkes Barre for lunch.
07/14/93        AVP/OWD         2.0     Home again