Arlington Municipal Airport Development Plan Arlington Airport Development Plan | Page 103

CRITICAL DESIGN AIRCRAFT
The selection of appropriate FAA design standards for the development and location of airport facilities
is based primarily upon the characteristics of the aircraft which are currently using or are expected to
use an airport. The critical design aircraft is used to define the design parameters for an airport. The
design aircraft may be a single aircraft or a composite aircraft representing a collection of aircraft clas-
sified by the three parameters: AAC, ADG, and TDG. In the case of an airport with multiple runways, a
design aircraft is selected for each runway.
The first consideration is the safe operation of aircraft likely to use an airport. Any operation of an air-
craft that exceeds design criteria of an airport may result in either an unsafe operation or a lesser safe-
ty margin; however, it is not the usual practice to base the airport design on an aircraft that uses the
Airport infrequently.
The design aircraft is defined by the FAA and TxDOT as the most demanding category of aircraft, or
family of aircraft, which conducts at least 500 itinerant operations per year at an airport or the most
demanding aircraft in regularly scheduled commercial service. Planning for future aircraft use is of par-
ticular importance since the design standards are used to plan separation distances between facilities.
These future standards must be considered now to ensure that short term development does not pre-
clude the reasonable long range potential needs of the Airport.
According to FAA AC 150/5300-13A, Change 1, Airport Design, “airport designs based only on existing
aircraft can severely limit the ability to expand the airport to meet future requirements for larger,
more demanding aircraft. Airport designs that are based on large aircraft never likely to be served by
the airport are not economical.” Selection of the current and future critical design aircraft must be re-
alistic in nature and supported by current data and realistic projections.
BASED AIRCRAFT
The determination of the design aircraft (or family of aircraft) will first examine the types of based air-
craft followed by an analysis of itinerant activity. The majority of based aircraft at Arlington Municipal
Airport are single and multi-engine piston-powered aircraft which fall within AACs A and B and ADGs I
and II. These smaller aircraft are often used for local operations which are not included in the critical
aircraft determination.
The next step is to identify the larger based aircraft, including turboprops and business jets that may
contribute to meeting the itinerant operations threshold of 500 annual operations. These aircraft
types typically have higher utilization rates than smaller aircraft and rarely perform local operations.
These aircraft can represent the critical design aircraft on their own, due to high utilization, or in com-
bination with other aircraft with similar characteristics.
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