Stapleton Memories

[SSDD]

I was driving into Denver a couple of days ago and noticed that the old Stapleton tower is still standing. Does anybody know why? Is it being used for other purposes. like maybe firefighter training?

Thanks

 

[T-Gates]

I believe it was saved as a historical landmark...

 

[DenverDude2002]

It was saved, the rest was not. da*m mayor Webb and Denver anyways. Now its becoming another f**king development in the bad part of Denver. Go figure.

 

[NuGuy]

I remember that the employee cafeteria at DEN was responsible for a number of poopie drawers with fellow crewmates...


Nu

 

[JB74]

I was driving into Denver a couple of days ago and noticed that the old Stapleton tower is still standing.

Good! My father was a controller there before it closed. As a kid, I can remember many nights spent up in that tower cab with my eyes glued to a pair binoculars. I used to love going on midnight shifts with him during the summers. Lots of memories.

 

[pilot error]

i've always wanted to buy it and turn it into a home. the cab would be a cool bedroom. unfortunetly, it is not for sale.

 

[minitour]

i've always wanted to buy it and turn it into a home. the cab would be a cool bedroom. unfortunetly, it is not for sale.

now that would be a kickass home...

I've seen some of these 727 "houses", but man...a tower...that'd be the shwag dilly...

 

[enigma]

I remember that the employee cafeteria at DEN was responsible for a number of poopie drawers with fellow crewmates...


Nu

It never got to me. I actually miss the "pit".

I don't miss sitting number thirty five in the penalty box and watching the snow blow by.

My favorite Stapleton memory would be collecting those bag carts on my way from the bull pen over to the main terminal. If you found enough, you'd get enough money to buy one of the employee special root beer floats at the ice cream parlor. Coming in a close second would be arriving to the west, coming down final at about two-twenty and receiving this clearance: "AirShuttle 11, cleared to land 26L, do NOT pass the United 757 going to the right".

enigma

 

[DenverDude2002]

And to think for us "youngsters" who saw DIA being built we will probably see DIA get replaced by a larger "DIA 2".

 

[wrxpilot]

Stapleton was a great airport, if for nothing else just the memories it gave me as an impressionable kid. My parents used to take my bro and I over to the perimeter fence as the jets were landing. Eventually security would come by and kick everyone out, but man it sure was a cool thing to see when you're a kid.

 

[jbDC9]

It never got to me. I actually miss the "pit".

mmm, "The Pit". Can I have an extra helping of grease please?

Personally, my favorite was the close in right downwind to 26R(or whatever the stubby E-W runway was) followed by the tight, dive bombing continuous turn to final... fun.

 

[dojetdriver]

Stapleton was a great airport, if for nothing else just the memories it gave me as an impressionable kid. My parents used to take my bro and I over to the perimeter fence as the jets were landing. Eventually security would come by and kick everyone out, but man it sure was a cool thing to see when you're a kid.

Ahhh, a fond memory indeed. Sometimes you would see people with couches in the back of their trucks, watching the sunset behind the mountains with a screaming airliner going overhead. I like how you could hear the wake whistle through the fence.

 

[NuGuy]

mmm, "The Pit". Can I have an extra helping of grease please?

That place had a hundered times the power of Medimucil. It was guarenteed to work within 4 hours to empty your entire digestive tract from your tonsils to your cornhole. Around our shop it was known as "colon blow".

Nu

 

[bobbysamd]

Stapleton

I grew up in Denver and took my first airplane flights and many thereafter from Stapleton. My first was around 1958. I was seven years old. My family took a trip to Scottsdale. We flew a DC-7 to ABQ and connected to a TWA Connie to PHX. I had been reading about airplanes since I could learn how to read and already knew about Connies. Actually flying on one was the coolest thing for a very youthful airplane enthusiast; in fact, upon reflection, flying on anything with round engines was cool.

I believe that Frontier was still operating DC-3s back then.

I remember one time when I was a child eating at the SkyChef restaurant at Stapleton. It was above the terminal. You could see the ramp. A DC-7 taxied in. It was painted in both CO and UAL livery. I never saw anything like it before or since. I cannot remember the exact term for when two airlines operate the same airplane (could it be "interlining?"), but learned about it many years later from reading AIM communications procedures.

It might have been the same evening when a Continental Vickers Viscount taxied to the ramp. That was also cool.

Finally, we lived relatively close to Stapleton and also under the short final of Lowry AFB's east-west runway. I grew up seeing many interesting aircraft for both fields.

Stapleton was a great airport, but the more it expanded the more it took on a Rube Goldberg look. Denver International was needed badly.