What Explains Denver’s Longer Than Common Runways?

• Denver Worldwide Airport

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  DEN/KDEN

  Nation:

  United States

  CEO:

  Phillip A. Washington

  Passenger Depend :

  58,828,552 (2021)

  Runways :

  7/25 – 3,658m (12,000 ft) |8/26 – 3,658m (12,000 ft) |16L/34R – 3,658m (12,000 ft) |16R/34L – 4,877m (16,000 ft) |17L/35R – 3,658m (12,000 ft) |17R/35L – 3,658m (12,000 ft)

Denver Worldwide Airport (DEN) is an intercontinental hub located within the US state of Colorado. It stands out as being North America’s largest airport by floor space, and second on this planet solely to King Fahd Worldwide Airport (DMM) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. One cause for its massive floor space is its extraordinarily lengthy runways, however why does it want these?

An outline of Denver’s runways

Denver Worldwide Airport opened in February 1995, changing the town’s former Stapleton Worldwide Airport. Its first 5 runways had been equal in size. Runways 7/25, 8/26, 16L/34R, 17L/35R, and 17R/35L all measured precisely 12,000 ft lengthy. This distance equates to three,658 meters, or 2.27 miles. Nevertheless, they had been finally dwarfed by one other touchdown strip.

September 2003 noticed the opening of Denver‘s sixth runway, generally known as 16R/34L. This concrete strip differed from the prevailing 5 runways by being 4,000 ft longer than them. This gave it a complete size of 16,000 ft, equal to 4,877 meters or 3.03 miles. This astronomically lengthy runway represented a 33% extension in comparison with the 5 that had come earlier than it.

Nevertheless, even these had been considerably longer than common by way of US airports. Certainly, they outranked three of the 4 runways at Los Angeles Worldwide, and two of the 4 at New York JFK. So why are Denver’s runways, significantly its sixth, so lengthy?

Why does it want such lengthy runways?

The rationale that Denver’s runways are so lengthy is right down to the altitude at which the airport is located. Colorado’s capital is named the ‘Mile Excessive Metropolis,’ and, correspondingly, its airport finds itself located 1,656 m / 5,434 ft above sea stage. This leads to a difficult set of atmospheric circumstances for pilots generally known as ‘scorching and excessive.’

Low air density is a attribute of scorching and excessive circumstances. This comes about resulting from a mix of an airport being located at a excessive altitude, and liable to scorching temperatures. This lack of density reduces raise, in addition to impacting the talents of an plane’s engines.

These components imply that plane underneath such circumstances require the next raise velocity to take off. This necessitates an extended runway than in the event that they had been departing at a decrease altitude to achieve this velocity. Plane with increased power-to-weight rations, such because the Boeing 757, are well-suited to such airports. Nevertheless, due to its lengthy runways, Denver may even deal with fully-loaded Airbus A380s and Boeing 747s regardless of its altitude and related atmospheric challenges.

Room for enlargement

The positioning has the capability for six further runways, for an general variety of 12. The airfield is cut up between its east and west sides. Denver Worldwide shares the next:

• The airfield incorporates a complete of about 6 million sq. yards of concrete amongst 15,000 particular person concrete panels
• The typical panel measurement is about 20 sq. ft
• The airport has a complete airfield pavement administration system that tracks the lifespan for every of those panels, ensuing within the means to interchange particular person panels quite than whole areas of the airfield directly

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Even lengthier examples elsewhere

Though Denver has very prolonged runways, together with the longest in North America, they don’t seem to be the world’s longest. Certainly, as Easy Flying explored in July 2020, there are a handful of runways that stretch so far as 5 kilometers lengthy, and even additional.

For instance, China’s Qamdo Bamda Airport used to have a 5,500-meter-long touchdown strip. Very like Denver, this was additionally necessitated by its extraordinarily excessive altitude (4,334 m / 14,219 ft above sea stage). Nevertheless, its runway has since been diminished to 4,500 meters lengthy.

Elsewhere, Moscow Zhukovsky boasts a 5,400-meter lengthy runway. Shigatse Peace Airport (China) and Ulyanovsk Vostochny Airport (Russia) additionally clock in at precisely 5 kilometers in size. When it comes to non-commercial runways, these are dwarfed by the ten,700-meter dry lakebed strips at White Sands House Harbor in New Mexico.

Do you know about Denver’s longer-than-average runways? Have you ever ever flown into or out of the Mile Excessive Metropolis? Tell us your ideas and experiences within the feedback!