Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Washington Dulles International Airport lies some 26 miles west of the US capital in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, Virginia, and is the principal international gateway for the Washington metropolitan area. Opened in 1962 and famous for Eero Saarinen's soaring Main Terminal, it is today a major hub for United Airlines set within a vast Class B airspace complex with four long parallel and crossing runways, all but one served by ILS.
Washington Dulles International Airport serves the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area from a site in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, Virginia, and is operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. It is best known for its Eero Saarinen-designed Main Terminal, one of the most celebrated pieces of airport architecture in the United States, and is a hub for United Airlines. For a simulator pilot the field offers a genuine heavy-metal, high-density Class B environment, with four long runways, full ILS coverage on three of them, and the operational texture of one of the busiest international airports on the US East Coast.
Dulles sits within controlled Class B airspace as one of the principal airports of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, roughly 26 miles west of downtown Washington. It straddles the boundary of Loudoun and Fairfax counties, lying west of Herndon and southwest of Sterling, in the unincorporated communities of Chantilly and Dulles.
Dulles has four physical runways. Runway 01C/19C is 11,499 feet, hard surface, lit, with ILS. Runway 01R/19L is 11,496 feet, hard surface, lit, with ILS. Runway 01L/19R is 9,393 feet, hard surface, lit, with ILS. Runway 12/30 is 10,481 feet, hard surface and lit on both ends, but the ILS is published only for the approach to runway 12, with runway 30 having no instrument approach recorded. Field elevation is 289 feet.
Potomac Approach provides approach control on 120.45 MHz, with Potomac Departure on 125.05 MHz. The airport's ATIS broadcasts on 134.85 MHz. Clearance delivery operates on 135.7 MHz, ground control on 121.9 MHz, and Dulles Tower on 120.1 MHz. A ramp control frequency is available on 129.55 MHz, and UNICOM is on 122.95 MHz. The ARMEL VOR remote communications outlet operates on 113.5 MHz.
As a Class B, tower-controlled international airport, all arriving and departing traffic at Dulles is sequenced by Potomac Approach and handed to Dulles Tower for landing or departure clearance; there are no separate published VFR circuit procedures for general aviation traffic joining the pattern in the way a smaller uncontrolled field would have.
Dulles traces its origins to postwar planning for a second major airport to serve Washington, D.C., after Washington National Airport proved too small for anticipated growth. The Civil Aeronautics Administration began examining sites from 1948, and Congress passed the Washington Airport Act in 1950 to fund a new facility. Several sites were debated, including locations in Fairfax County and the possible conversion of Andrews Air Force Base, before President Eisenhower selected the current site in 1958; the name was chosen by his aviation advisor Pete Quesada in honour of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Construction displaced the unincorporated, largely African-American community of Willard, whose 87 property owners had their land condemned. The airport was dedicated by Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower on 17 November 1962, opening with three long runways corresponding to today's 01C/19C, 01R/19L and 12/30, plus a shorter fourth strip. Its Main Terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1958, was built without gates, with aircraft parked at remote stands and passengers ferried by mobile lounges that raised to aircraft-door height, a system still in limited use today. The airport was renamed Washington Dulles International Airport in 1984. The first midfield terminal with jetbridges was added in 1985 as airlines began hub operations there. Notable incidents in Dulles's history include two Air France Concorde tyre failures on take-off, in June and July 1979, which led to new pre-flight wheel inspection requirements, and the departure of American Airlines Flight 77 on 11 September 2001, which was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon.
Dulles remains a major hub for United Airlines and is used by regional partners including Mesa Airlines, GoJet Airlines and CommuteAir operating under the United Express brand, as well as being a hub for Southern Airways Express. It handles extensive scheduled international and domestic traffic across its four-runway system, making it one of the busiest and most complex airports in the Mid-Atlantic region for simulator pilots seeking a realistic heavy-traffic, multi-runway operating environment.
