Centennial Airport Map & Layout

Centennial Airport sits in Arapahoe County, roughly 15 miles southeast of downtown Denver, at a field elevation of 5,885 feet. Its approximate coordinates are 39.5701, -104.8493. The field runs three runways and hosts five FBOs, and understanding how those pieces relate to each other makes it a lot easier to picture the airport before you ever pull up an actual diagram.

Runways at a Glance

How to Think About the Layout

Picture two long, parallel runways running north-south, 17L/35R and 17R/35L, with 17L/35R being the longer of the pair at just over two miles... well, just over 10,000 feet, which is long enough for KAPA's jet traffic. The crosswind runway, 10/28, cuts across roughly perpendicular to those two, giving pilots an option when the wind isn't cooperating with the north-south alignment.

The five FBOs on the field, Modern Aviation, Signature North, Signature South, jetCenters of Colorado, and The Heliplex, have their ramps distributed around the airport rather than clustered into a single terminal area the way you might picture at an airline airport. That spread is normal for a field this size and this busy, but it also means the taxi route from any given ramp to your assigned runway depends heavily on which FBO you're using and which runway is active that day.

Field Basics

Elevation: 5,885 feet. Approximate coordinates: 39.5701, -104.8493. Location: Arapahoe County, Colorado, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Denver. These numbers are useful for flight planning purposes and for getting oriented, but none of them substitute for the actual published data pilots need for a specific flight.

The elevation is worth internalizing before you fly in, especially if you're used to lower fields. At 5,885 feet, density altitude on a warm summer afternoon can be considerably higher than the field elevation suggests, which affects takeoff performance and climb rate more than it might at a sea-level airport. Factor that into your planning rather than treating 5,885 feet as just a number on a chart.

Why the Layout Matters for Planning

Knowing which runway is the long one and which is the crosswind runway helps you anticipate which one you're likely to get before you even check in with ATIS, particularly on a windy day when 10/28 is more likely to be active. It also helps you picture your taxi route in advance: if you know your FBO sits away from the runway you expect to use, you can plan for a longer taxi and factor that into engine start timing, especially in cold weather or on a day with a lot of ground traffic. This page also includes a live map view of the field and a current crosswind calculator that works out today's wind against each runway in real time; use that tool for the actual numbers on the day you fly, and use the orientation below for the parts of the layout that don't change from one day to the next.

A Practical Case: The Long Taxi in Cold Weather

Here's a scenario that plays out at spread-out fields like this one more often than pilots expect. A based pilot preheats the engine on a January morning, times the preheat to finish right as they plan to start up, and then gets assigned a runway on the opposite side of the field from their ramp because the wind favors it that day. The taxi from ramp to runway takes several minutes longer than the short-field taxi they're used to, ground traffic backs them up further behind a line of departures, and by the time they're cleared onto the runway the engine has cooled more than the preheat was meant to allow for.

None of that is a crisis, but it's exactly the kind of mismatch a spread-out, multi-FBO field creates that a single-ramp airport doesn't. The fix pilots settle on is simple once they've been through it once: preheat later than you think you need to, or budget extra idle time after startup, when you know the active runway is on the far side of the field from your ramp. Requesting progressive taxi instructions from ground if you're unfamiliar with the routing also removes the guesswork that eats up time on an unfamiliar taxi route.

Deciding How Much Taxi Time to Plan For

A rough guide for budgeting ground time at a field this size:

• If your ramp sits on the same side of the field as the active runway, a normal taxi allowance is fine.
• If your ramp sits on the opposite side from the active runway, whether because of wind favoring 10/28 or just which parallel is in use, add several minutes to your usual taxi estimate and time engine start or preheat accordingly.
• If you're unfamiliar with KAPA's taxiway layout, ask ground for progressive taxi instructions rather than trying to interpret the diagram in real time while moving.
• If it's a high-traffic period, weekend mornings and nice-weather afternoons especially, expect to queue behind other departures regardless of which ramp you're coming from, and build that into your fuel and timing plan.

What a Chart Supplement Entry Actually Contains

Since this page points you toward the Chart Supplement rather than trying to replace it, it helps to know what you'll find there. A standard airport entry lists the field identifier, elevation, and magnetic variation up top, followed by runway data: each runway's length, width, surface, lighting, and any load-bearing or gradient notes. Below that sits a communications block listing every frequency in use, a services section covering fuel and available repairs, and a remarks section that carries the operational quirks that don't fit anywhere else, noise abatement procedures, hours of operation for part-time services, or specific taxiway cautions. Once you know that structure, pulling the real KAPA entry and finding the specific detail you need takes a fraction of the time it would otherwise.

Bottom line: KAPA's three-runway, five-FBO layout is straightforward once you've pictured it once: two long parallels running north-south and a shorter crosswind runway cutting across them, with ramps spread around the perimeter instead of clustered in one spot. That spread is convenient for based traffic but means taxi time and routing depend on which ramp and which runway you're working with on a given day. Use the live map and crosswind tool on this page for today's specifics, and use the official airport diagram and Chart Supplement, not this page, for anything you're relying on in the cockpit.