Page 85 - Planning and Design of Airports

Air craft Characteristics Related to Airport Design 57

as an airplane’s characteristics and performance handbook, should
be consulted. In particular, the runway length required to operate a
particular aircraft, whether it be a takeoff or a landing, can vary con-
siderably based on aircraft engine performance and total operating
weight, as well as by the local environmental and atmospheric condi-
tions. Calculation of required runway length is often performed prior
to each operation as part of aircraft flight planning, often using tables,
charts, or formulas provided by the aircraft manufacturer.
While there have certainly been recent breakthroughs in the intro-
duction of very large aircraft such as the Airbus A-380, the overall
trend in aircraft manufactured for civil air transport has focused
design on efficiency, rather than the historical goals of increased size.
More efficient aircraft may be smaller than older generation aircraft,
but their increased efficiencies allow operators to focus on increasing
service frequencies. This increase in operating efficiency has also
shifted the focus of increasing aircraft speeds, at least in the realm of
producing supersonic aircraft (i.e., those that travel at speeds greater
than the speed of sound), to more efficient subsonic aircraft. As such
production and operation of supersonic aircraft, such as the Con-
corde, was retired in the early part of the twenty-first century.

Dimensional Standards
Figure 2-1 illustrates some of the terms related to aircraft dimensions
that are important to airport planning and design.
The length of an aircraft is defined as the distance from the front
tip of the fuselage, or main body of the aircraft, to the back end of the
tail section, known as the empennage. The length of an aircraft is used
to determine the length of an aircraft’s parking area, hangars. In addi-
tion for a commercial service airport, the length of the largest aircraft
to perform at least five departures per day determines the required
amount of aircraft rescue and firefighting equipment on the airfield.
The wingspan of an aircraft is defined as the distance from wingtip
to wingtip of the aircraft’s main wings. The wingspan of an aircraft is
used to determine the width of aircraft parking areas and gate spac-
ing, as well as determining the width and separations of runways
and taxiways on the airfield.
The maximum height of an aircraft is typically defined as the dis-
tance from the ground to the top of the aircraft’s tail section. Only in
rare cases is an aircraft’s maximum height found elsewhere on the
aircraft, for example, the Airbus Beluga’s maximum height is noted
as the distance from the ground to the top of the forward fuselage
entry door when it is fully extended upward in the open position.
The wheelbase of an aircraft is defined as the distance between the
center of the aircraft’s main landing gear and the center of its nose gear,
or tail-wheel, in the case of a tail-wheel aircraft. An aircraft’s wheel track
is defined as the distance between the outer wheels of an aircraft’s