Construction began yesterday at Denver International Airport (DIA/KDEN) for the 6th and final runway. The runway, 16R-34L, is 16000x150, and was part of the original DIA plan, but with extreme delays and cost overruns the runway was declared unnecessary at the time the airport opened.The original argument was that the runway could be used as an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle. Although true, it was a poor justification for the cost of the runway.Now, with the coming of the A380, and international flights needing a good central location in the US, the Feds have approved the final construction of the runway. The 16000-foot length will give enough length for a fully-loaded 747-400 to take off at the mile-high altitude. The total fuel-savings is also a plus. The planes are already at 5300'.The runway was all but finished already, with all the leveling and sand and strengthening completed a couple of years ago. Now the final 1 1/2 feet of concrete is being poured, complete with CAT III systems and all the lighting cans.Of course it's snowing today, so let's hope the pour works okay.For those with FS2000, the runway is mostly there (too short but there), now it can be finished. FS2K2 doesn't have it. Go figure. Good time a someone to completely rebuild the airport.

I wish someone would do a COMPLETE redo of DIA.

(mainly just cuz I am hoping a genius gMax guru will make a GOOD DIA! ;-)

Hi Scott do you know how much work a field as large as DIA is (but it's one of the fields that I would like to tackle) as there are lotsof goodies around that would alow me to model it as an idea there areprobably 500 of so signs alone! plus custom lighting like inset hold lighting and wigwags(runway guard lighting) in addition to all thebuildings. Dan

Hi Scott,Interesting news, I also heard this on Denver TV. I understand it's the longest non-military runway in the world.Bruce.(Boulder, CO).

Scott, Gary Wideup was working on redoing KDEN but ran into some problems in the way he was going about the update.(http://avsim.com/hangar/utils/gwidup/). Not sure if he has found a work around yet. It has been a month since he has updated his web site with news so not sure how his project is progressing. Wonder if he knows about the new runway, maybe he could add it in.I have tried his salt lake city add on and it looks real nice but its a hard on frames, even with a high end system. Oh! wasn't that snow storm strange this late in the spring season? It was almost enough snow to break some branches off one of my trees.we sure needed the moisture though.Scott (Thornton, CO.)

Dan,DIA would be a lot simpler than older airports in that it is fairly straight forward without years of build-up and former runways and taxiways. It's actually got to be one of the most simple large airports around. Everything in neat little rows from the concourses to Combes to the Cargo facilities to the Continental and United facilities. There are actually not that many signs either (few taxiways, few signs).Jeffco would take more time.The only thing that would really take time is the :-erks tent...errr..terminal.I can live without wigwags and inset hold lines, but I would really like to have real jetways and baggage "exits" (A and B only) and real topography. It is impossible to see any runway from each other. This airport has never been right in FS.