KPIA – General Downing – Peoria International Airport v1.0
KPIA – General Downing – Peoria International Airport
Peoria, IL, about two and a half hours southwest of Chicago, this city is considered part of Central Illinois. The city itself has a population of around 114,000 with another 250,000 living around the city itself. With a rather substantial population, Peoria International Airport does see its share of commercial, private, and military traffic. The two main carriers in Peoria are United and American (usually under their regional affiliates or subsidiaries). Destinations include Chicago O’Hare, Dallas Fort Worth and Charlotte Douglas, where travelers can connect on to hundreds of different destinations. Allegiant Airlines also services Peoria with seasons routes to Florida and Nevada. Peoria also sees a variety of corporate travel thanks to the many businesses that are headquartered in Peroria, most notably Caterpillar. The airport also is home to the Peoria Air National Guard and US Army Reserves who occupy the southern end of the field.
About This Modification
This will replace the default airport for Peoria which is woefully inaccurate. This remastered version was made only with MSFS SDK items, keeping the install simple and lightweight. Just unzip the file and place “pilotguy121a-airport-kpia-pilotguy121a” into your community folder. A few default buildings remain, including the terminal. However, all the gates, parking, taxiways, aprons, and runways were redone. Appropriately sized hangars and buildings were placed throughout the airport to better represent their real world counterparts. Night time lighting was completely reworked as well. Special attention was paid to the taxiway lights which are placed as accurately as possible to the real world. Terminal lighting was also added. Parking lots, ramps, and even streets around the airport area have been illuminated. In certain areas the satellite imagery has been cleaned up. Overall, this addition greatly enhances KPIA making it far more realistic and true to life than the default versions.
A few notes…default approaches, STARS, SIDs, ect have not been altered. The ILSs were retweaked so they align better with the modification. The ATC frequencies were updated to match real world frequencies.
This is currently V1.0 and is compatible with SU6. I have completed several flights into and out of this modified airport without any issues. Should you experience any issues, please message me directly and I will look into it.
I have around 25 – 30 hours into this project. If you enjoy it, please feel free to donate! Completely optional but any little bit helps with the continued development of this and other airports.
GPS Coordinates: 40.66284890894043, -89.69167245365159