The pulses themselves can only affect electronic items, and cannot damage glass or plastic. Some claim that, in 2007, fourteen commercial aircraft spontaneously shattered windshields as the presumed result of electromagnetic pulses.įirst, one must ignore what an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, actually is and does. It seems to be a figment of the conspiracy theorists' minds. The end of hideously long delays experienced at Stapleton in bad weather cured most people of the grumbling. No protest notable of the ' mainstream media' about the new airport ever happened. DIA is set 25 miles from the city center and covers an area of 53 square miles, for expandability and to keep people from complaining about the noise. Being this close also limited the size of buildings in downtown Denver to between 700' and 715' tall. Stapleton was also five miles from the Denver city center, and had been repeatedly sued for noise violations by a number of neighborhoods in the Northern Denver Metro area. Stapleton was at capacity for gate space, airline traffic (terrible in bad weather), and could not add space without expanding into the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical weapons manufacturing center and, later, a Superfund site that would've required expensive decontamination. In rigid terms, an A380 (the largest commercial airliner) could non-stop fly from Denver to Beijing (PEK).

In addition, only three of Stapleton's runways ran to 10,000 feet, just barely long enough for jets to take off in the thin air, while DIA's runways support the largest jets currently flying (12,000-16,000 feet). The two sets crossed each other, meaning that only three runways could be used at any one time, while DIA's 5 total runways do not cross and (in calm weather or light winds) can be used simultaneously. While it had 6 runways in total, they were in the configuration of two sets of three parallel runways. Stapleton International Airport was originally built in 1929, then repeatedly expanded over 65 years.

It's claimed that Denver's Stapleton International Airport (SIA) was fine, yet Denver International was built with fewer runways, reducing Denver's capacity. Stapleton International Airport runways, 1993. Well, you can judge for yourself how close is the resemblance, but most people think it's more of a pinwheel shape. That is, if you ignore the fact that the shape has an extra arm and it's not radially symmetrical. Of course, if you have been primed to see sinister patterns in everything, the whole thing looks like a giant Nazi swastika. It also allows for adding more parallel runways into the future.

The large distance between parallel runways provides more room around aircraft in bad weather, as Denver is well known for high winds and extremely unpredictable weather. This particular layout does allow for an extremely efficient configuration of planes to arrive and depart from the runways simultaneously without plane movements overlapping. Like many modern airports, the DIA consists of a central building complex surrounded by runways and connected to them with taxiways (see the picture on the left). Now imagine what would happen to departing/arriving planes if the runways formed a traditional cross.

Denver airport aerial view