FAARFIELD (FAA)

Free Design the Building

Standard airport pavement thickness design software developed and distributed free by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) -- implements the FAA AC 150/5320-6G pavement design methodology using layered elastic analysis and the ACR/PCR pavement-strength reporting method; the mandatory tool for any U.S. airport pavement engineer working on FAA-funded airport projects, with companion backcalculation (BAKFAA) and runway-exit-design (REDIM) software.

Agent-hostile
3.0 /5 composite score
C1 5/5 and C4 5/5 reflect a free FAA desktop download with XML exchange, while RF2 keeps C2 1/5 because there is no public API, CLI, or scripting surface; the documented workflow is airport pavement design only.
Solid

Rubric Scorecard

How we grade →

Criterion Score Evidence
Value for the price 5/5 Free, free tier Source →
Agent Friendliness 1/5 API: none
Ease of adoption 3/5 --
Portability & lock-in 5/5 1 file formats
Interoperability 1/5 --

Pricing

ModelFree
Free tieryes
Free vieweryes
Trialyes
Free tier scopeusable
Visit FAARFIELD (FAA) →

How we verified this: we checked FAARFIELD (FAA) against its live site and an independent source — faa.gov. Nothing on this page is listed from memory. See how we grade. Verified 2026-07-18.

Evidence

File formats

FormatDirectionSupport
XML both unknown

Sources

Pricing

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