Airfield Pavement Management and Policy

General aviation (GA) airports are one of many critical infrastructures to a community. The community may use the airport for business purposes by transporting people and/or goods, helicopter lifesaving flight operations to and from hospitals or act as a reliver airport for commercial flight services. The airport may also be used for regional mobility connecting communities or the starting point to train future aviators that will be pilots for commercial aviation or military service. It is asserted here that the effectiveness of the general aviation airports to their communities is relative to how well the airport is maintained. To create an acceptable state-of-good repair or maintenance expectations concerning the airport’s assets, a comprehensive maintenance plan in addition to a capital plan is required. The 1st chapter showcases the importance of this research as industry places high importance on Pavement Condition Index (PCI) and how it has been misunderstood for pavement replacement rather than a comprehensive program that includes both maintenance and capital projects to maximize asset life. The 2nd chapter dives in several relevant literature survey’s that was utilized to have a further understanding where the gap of other research is, what hasn’t been accomplished and what still needs to be further researched. Chapter 3 focuses on creating the problem definition that focuses away from just a PCI being a number and focusing more on the pavement distresses while Chapter 4 dives into a solution approach using a heuristic model while also discussing the methodology. Chapter 5 is the results of while Chapter 6 is the business insights. Chapter 7 is the conclusion of what was the best method and other consideration.