New runway at KCLE

[Hopkins]

For all the interested KCLE listeners, Cleveland's new 9,000 foot runway (6L/24R) opened today.

Techincally, it had already opened once at 6800 feet.  They then closed it later to finish off the remaining 2200 feet.

Here's a news article about it:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/109169844570723.xml

and here's the new taxi diagram:
http://download.aopa.org/iap/20040805/airport_diagrams/00084AD.PDF

The remainder of the expansion project includes (I believe) extending the old long runway (6R/24L) to 11,000 feet.  Runway 6C/24C is supposed to be converted to a taxiway.

What I find kind of interesting is all that extra room at the end of 6L.   The runway used to go just past 10/28, but now it's clearly not supposed to be used.  I wonder if it will also turn into a taxiway?  Or if it's there for future expansion?  Did they leave it closed so they could operate on 10/28 simultaneously with 6L?  If anyone reading this knows, fill me in!  

[IndyTower]

I don't know a whole lot about how ATC at CLE operates, but I would guess that the taxiway may have been taken out there so 24R and 24C would be staggered enough to conduct simultanious approaches to those runways.  I doubt it would be taken out just so 28/10 could be used, as they could either depart from a taxiway for 24R or land and hold short 6L with the runway crossing 10/28/.  However, with using 10/28 and the new runway and a parallel, that would increase the AAR I would imagine.  Just my 2 cents...maybe someone more familiar with CLE can shed some more light.

[Hopkins]

Those are good thoughts.  In the long term, 6C/24C is going to be turned into a taxiway; based on that, I don't think they were planning on having simultaneous ops for 6L/24R & 6C/24C.  However, it is possible in the short term -- since they're going to be extending 6R/24L, they'll probably have to close it for at least some period of time, during which they'll probably use 6C/24C and 6L/24R.

During busy periods in the past (before 6L/24R), they have used 6C, 6R, and 10 simultaneously (6R was LAHSO 10).