Lima, Ohio/Allen County's first paved airport, KLIA.
Opened; 1933. Closed; 1980
Built in 1933, it first consisted of 3 sod runways, with a single hangar located in the Northwest corner. It later (around 1960) sported a single paved east-west runway (9/27, 3,500 ft) and two sod strips, with one running parallel to the North of the paved runway.
In addition, it had a small office/terminal, a main service hangar, and 3 long T-hangars.
It's "golden years" were from 1953-63, when Lake Central Airlines ran DC-3 service connecting Lima to Columbus, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. A new airport (the current KAOH) was built on Lima's east side in 1963, but KLIA continued to operate as a public and later a private field until ~1980, when it's beacon went dark for good.
The former field is still visible, though the runway is largely gone, appearing to have been ground up for recycling or something. The foundations of two T-hangars are still visible, and the main hangar/FBO is now a Christian TV station.
This scenery was my first airport project ever; built largely with information gleaned from Paul Freeman's "Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields" website (an incredible resource for history buffs, with a state-by-state listing of gone/forgotten airports broken down into regions).
I know the layout is accurate, though I couldn't find the exact style of buildings used at the actual airport, so I had to use library/generic items. It was an attempt to replicate it during the Lake Central years, but with no pictures available, I had to use my imagination. The wind tee location is estimated, from old diagrams.
Installation; Copy/paste the "KLIA" .bgl into fs9/addon scenery/scenery. Start fs9 and go.
To view the entire scenery, you'll need two Sidney Schwartz libraries;
Small airport objects ss
GA Hangars SS V3.
This Fs9 Scenery is released as freeware. Copyright Stephen Plumb. Enjoy as-is, or change it if you can make it more accurate. You do not have permission to use this product for monetary gain, period.
--- The rights and wishes of the author must be respected.
Copyright 2011 by Stephen B. Plumb. All rights reserved.
Thanks;
Sidney Schwartz for his outstanding object libraries,
Jon Masterson/ScruffyDuck Software for ADE9X.
Paul Freeman for his informative site which gave a glimpse into the history of this forgotten field.
