Abstract:
I
n the preface to the fourth edition of this text, the late Dr. Francis
McKelvey remarked that the technological and legislative developments related to the air transportation industry in the 1980s
and early 1990s were of such significance that an updating of the book
was needed. The fourth edition, published in 1994, enhanced previous
editions, the first of which was published in 1962.
In the 16 years since this last update, it may be said that the
changes to the practice of airport planning and design have been
more significant than in any other era in the history of aviation.
Implementation of twenty-first-century technologies has resulted in
the first major overhaul to aircraft and air navigation systems in
generations, computer-based analytical and design models have
replaced antiquated monographs and estimation tables, and highly
significant geopolitical events have all but rewritten the rules of
planning, designing, and operating civil-use airports.
These significant enhancements to the aviation system have
resulted in unique challenges in creating an updated fifth edition of
this important and highly accepted text. While every attempt was
made to keep to the traditional structure of the book and to preserve
the theoretical strengths for which it is most well known, much of the
material in the previous edition required more replacement than
simply being made current. Within this latest edition the reader will
find, for example, new and entirely different strategies to estimate
required runway lengths and their associated required pavement
thicknesses. This text attempts to maintain the flavor of previous
editions while understanding, for example, that airport navigational
aids of the previous century are becoming all but obsolete, in favor
of a digital, satellite-based communication and navigational system,
and that airport financing strategies are in a revolutionary state, given
anticipated changes to federal aviation funding mechanisms.
Updating this edition has, in fact, been a continuous “race against
time,” as important changes to the aviation system were constantly
occurring during the process.
