Never Dull at Dulles

vZDC's yearly flagship event, Never Dull at Dulles, returns in 2017 for VATUSA's Friday Night Operations. This year's Never Dull at Dulles will mark the occasion as its first appearance in the winter months. Pilots familiar with this event may see a new challenge in this yearly event as the typical temperate Washington DC Summer is replaced with a sometimes unforgiving and challenging December as FNO levels of traffic make their way in and out of the airport.

Dulles was originally planned by the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. The iconic terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen, remains one of the airports most recognizable features where it stood as a symbol of the airports modern construction for its time featuring high speed turn offs and instrument approaches on all of its new, long runways to accommodate the new jet era. Since then Dulles has continued to expand with new terminal construction, new runways, and more traffic as it works together with Washington National Airport and Baltimore/Washington Airport to meet the growing air travel demands of Washington DC. Today, Dulles serves as the primary international gateway for the greater Washington Metropolitan area as well as an important hub for transcontinental flights across the US where it boasted 22 million passengers in 2016. 

vZDC ARTCC's controllers are pleased to be hosting Friday Night Ops for Never Dull at Dulles and we welcome pilots to enjoy any of the many domestic, international, cargo, and general aviation flights there are to choose from.

For our Christmas season event at Dulles we would like to remember that this event would not be possible without the tireless efforts of John McClane on Christmas in 1990. We'll keep the runway lights burning.