KMDW and KDEN Configuration

Basics is the weather in terms of the usual headwind/tailwind. But DEN often uses both the N-S and E-W runways at the same time. Like right now... (I filtered for altitudes at or below 8000 msl to avoid enroute traffic overhead.)
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murphey said:
Depends entirely on the weather.
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Yeah. But they’re going to have a, let’s call it the calm wind one. I’m just trying to figure out which configuration they are on most of the time. Take LAX for instance. The land West on the 24/25’s most of the time. They don’t swing the boat to East until about 10 knots.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Basics is the weather in terms of the usual headwind/tailwind. But DEN often uses both the N-S and E-W runways at the same time. Like right now... (I filtered for altitudes at or below 8000 msl to avoid enroute traffic overhead.)
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Yeah, that makes sense. Using the East/West runways for departures. What I’m seeing here is they are Landing South. I’m wondering if South is the ‘usual’ way or is North the ‘usual’ way and they only switch when wind dictates they must.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah, that makes sense. Using the East/West runways for departures. What I’m seeing here is they are Landing South. I’m wondering if South is the ‘usual’ way or is North the ‘usual’ way and they only switch when wind dictates they must.
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AFAIK there is no "usual" way. Departures are N,S,E,W "gates" and inbound are the NW, NE, SW, SE "gates". There are 4 NS runways, 2 EW runways.

Why do you ask?

Of course you could call the airport manager and ask. Dave LaPorte is COO. Or the FSDO office at (303) 342-1100. They could put you in touch with the ATC office. I have the direct line but not going to publish it here. (I have friends in "high places")
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah, that makes sense. Using the East/West runways for departures. What I’m seeing here is they are Landing South. I’m wondering if South is the ‘usual’ way or is North the ‘usual’ way and they only switch when wind dictates they must.
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Well, there are more N-S runways than E-W runways. Things may have changes in the years since I flew in that area, but if there were any preferences, it was avoiding operations that crossed over each other. So, as I recall, the E-W runways were mostly used for departures. But that type of usage is common at other airports with multiple runways more or less perpendicular to each other, even if it's a simple as 2 parallels and a single crosswind runway.

Edit: Looking at that ADS-B page live, it looks pretty typical to me for departures to the south. Arrivals on the 16s (the N-S runways on the west side), and departures on the 17s and runway 8.
 
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murphey said:
AFAIK there is no "usual" way. Departures are N,S,E,W "gates" and inbound are the NW, NE, SW, SE "gates". There are 4 NS runways, 2 EW runways.

Why do you ask?

Of course you could call the airport manager and ask. Dave LaPorte is COO. Or the FSDO office at (303) 342-1100. They could put you in touch with the ATC office. I have the direct line but not going to publish it here. (I have friends in "high places")
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Why I ask is to decide which side of the plane I want to sit on. Which side will likely give me cooler things to see out the window.
 
luvflyin said:
Why I ask is to decide which side of the plane I want to sit on. Which side will likely give me cooler things to see out the window.
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If you are coming in over the mountains, plenty of stuff to see, but otherwise, left side if they are landing to the north; right side if landing to the south. There is literally nothing to see looking out over the plains until Kansas City.
 
luvflyin said:
Why I ask is to decide which side of the plane I want to sit on. Which side will likely give me cooler things to see out the window.
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You may need to just play the odds and see how often the winds blow from the south as compared to the north, and choose to maximize the odds to sit on the side with a view.

The west side of Terminal B has a nice view of the mountains. There is an outdoor area that has large glass panels.
 
luvflyin said:
Why I ask is to decide which side of the plane I want to sit on. Which side will likely give me cooler things to see out the window.
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Probably a 50/50 chance either way. Even if you knew what they were using when you took off, it could change before you get there.
 
midlifeflyer said:
If you are coming in over the mountains, plenty of stuff to see, but otherwise, left side if they are landing to the north; right side if landing to the south. There is literally nothing to see looking out over the plains until Kansas City.
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I am reminded of a comment my mother made decades ago. We had moved from Buffalo, NY to Phoenix, AZ (those of you familiar with lake effect snow will understand). Every house we looked at, the real estate agent kept emphasizing mountain views, citrus trees in the yard and cedar fencing. Mom's comment - if I want lemons I'll go to the grocery store, if I want to see mountains I'll drive to the mountains (by the way, she hated driving in the mountains) and I really don't care about the fencing.

As for which side of the airplane....understand that about 50% of the time, it's not a straight-in, it's often a U turn so you've got a 50-50 chance regardless which side you're on.

luvflyin - let me know when you're planning to visit and we might be able to set up a trip to Leadville for you to get your certificate.

One more thing...since you're coming from California, doesn't matter, you'll see mountains on both sides. I'd also STRONGLY suggest cranking down your seatbelt as tight as possible by the time you get to the Utah/Colorado border.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Probably a 50/50 chance either way. Even if you knew what they were using when you took off, it could change before you get there.
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Could change? Try, “will change”… DEN approach likes to turn things around and surprise us.
 
murphey said:
I am reminded of a comment my mother made decades ago. We had moved from Buffalo, NY to Phoenix, AZ (those of you familiar with lake effect snow will understand). Every house we looked at, the real estate agent kept emphasizing mountain views, citrus trees in the yard and cedar fencing. Mom's comment - if I want lemons I'll go to the grocery store, if I want to see mountains I'll drive to the mountains (by the way, she hated driving in the mountains) and I really don't care about the fencing.

As for which side of the airplane....understand that about 50% of the time, it's not a straight-in, it's often a U turn so you've got a 50-50 chance regardless which side you're on.

luvflyin - let me know when you're planning to visit and we might be able to set up a trip to Leadville for you to get your certificate.

One more thing...since you're coming from California, doesn't matter, you'll see mountains on both sides. I'd also STRONGLY suggest cranking down your seatbelt as tight as possible by the time you get to the Utah/Colorado border.
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I’m changing planes there on my way to Chicago but hey, thanks for the offer.
 
You could check the ATISes just before boarding, guess which runways will be used, and change your seat assignment to the left/right side as desired, if there are enough seats still available by then to change it. Which might give only a slightly better probability of getting a seat with the desired view than a coin toss ahead of time.

https://atis.info/KDEN
https://atis.info/KMDW
 
luvflyin said:
I doubt very much they’re running opposite direction operations.
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I think I've seen DEN use both 8 and 26 for departures at the same time, wind permitting. They can do that as the runways don't interfere with each other nor with arrivals. (That kind of implies sitting on the right side would give a better view of DEN when departing.)
 
dmspilot said:
You could check the ATISes just before boarding, guess which runways will be used, and change your seat assignment to the left/right side as desired, if there are enough seats still available by then to change it. Which might give only a slightly better probability of getting a seat with the desired view than a coin toss ahead of time.

https://atis.info/KDEN
https://atis.info/KMDW
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Yeah, and there’s the Terminal Forecast also. Last minute seat changes aren’t usually available. But the thing I want to know is what is the preferred configuration, the calm wind runway so to speak. North or South, and what wind will trigger a change. At LAX it’s 10 knots. They don’t change from West to East until the tail winds on 24/25 get to 10 knots.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah, and there’s the Terminal Forecast also. Last minute seat changes aren’t usually available. But the thing I want to know is what is the preferred configuration, the calm wind runway so to speak. North or South, and what wind will trigger a change. At LAX it’s 10 knots. They don’t change from West to East until the tail winds on 24/25 get to 10 knots.
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I don’t know. You might ask in a controller forum. Or just watch ADS-B feeds for a few days :D

But I’ll mention that when I was based in that area, surface winds regularly (but not always) changed throughout the day. Southeasterly in the morning, moving clockwise throughout the day, gaining in intensity as they moved to the west in the afternoon, and diminishing as they they move northerly in the evening.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I don’t know. You might ask in a controller forum. Or just watch ADS-B feeds for a few days :D

But I’ll mention that when I was based in that area, surface winds regularly (but not always) changed throughout the day. Southeasterly in the morning, moving clockwise throughout the day, gaining in intensity as they moved to the west in the afternoon, and diminishing as they they move northerly in the evening.
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Still do.
 
The preferred runway for MDW is based on what ORD is using. When I flew in there it seemed that we used 31C mostly and very seldom used 13C.
 
MDW you generally want to be on the right hand side for landing. If they land SW you'll get downtown. If they land NW you won't see much either way. Out the right is the lake but you're south of downtown.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
MDW you generally want to be on the right hand side for landing. If they land SW you'll get downtown. If they land NW you won't see much either way. Out the right is the lake but you're south of downtown.
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You get a lot of downtown landing on the 4s
 
kaiser said:
You get a lot of downtown landing on the 4s
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True. ORD seems to default to landing west which would mean the 31 right? I go through Ohare a lot and never Midway so I'm less familiar. But 90% of my landings at ORD are to the west.
 
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