Our airport package for the University of Illinois Willard Airport is almost complete and we expect it to be ready for release in the coming week.
University of Illinois Willard Airport (KCMI) is a medium sized regional airport south of Savoy in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. It is owned and operated by the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and is named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard.
This airport played a significant role in the birth of Flight Simulator as we know it today as in 1976, Bruce Artwick, who was a student at the University of Illinois, wrote a thesis on computer flight simulation. He commercialised his ideas the next (1977) year and started writing a program called SubLogic Flight Simulator. He took flight lessons from Willard Airport to better understand the dynamics of flight and that is why Willard airport was the default start location for the program and all the flight lessons included in the package. This program was ported to the PC and became Microsoft Flight Simulator V1.0 in 1982 and the rest as they say is history.
Those of you who are old enough will probably remember SubLogic Flight Simulator. We started our Flight Simulation Career with this package, and we spend several hours flying around Willard Airport practicing landings, navigation and a lot more. That is why this airport still holds a special place in our hearts even to this day and that is why we decided to design this airport!
The satellite ground layer in Microsoft Flight Simulator is a bit outdated and the resolution is not that good and that is why we have decided to add and an updated photoreal ground layer to the airport. All the airport buildings have been designed with PBR Texturing in mind and we made sure that all the buildings as well as the airport layout in terms of the runway, taxiway, buildings and lighting are all accurate. We have also added an interior to the terminal as well as an interior for the control tower!
This airport will be made available via the Microsoft Marketplace for $12.50 US exclusively. We expect this airport to be available in the coming week, but we will post an updated article as soon as the package goes live on the Microsoft Flight Simulator Marketplace. Please watch this space for more news!
Screen shots of this airport are available below.
