Air Force Civil Engineers have long supported the employment of airpower during contingency operations by planning, building, and maintaining platforms to launch and recover aircraft. In the cold war era, these launch platforms were usually collocated operating bases, supported by a robust infrastructure that was well known to CE planners. Unfortunately, drastic changes in our national security environment, and reduced infrastructure overseas, have meant that today's launch platforms are often unfamiliar runways and airstrips scattered throughout the world. CE planners, still tasked to beddown a variety of operational missions, are now faced with a much more difficult challenge. Specifically, they must plan beddowns at more remote locations, with less planning time and less preplanning information. The objective of this study was to find ways to improve the Civil Engineer contingency planning process through the use of automation technology. This study recommends an automation strategy based on a thorough examination of the air base planning process, existing automation initiatives and products, and future automation technologies. To support this research, the team conducted an extensive literature review and made numerous personal contacts with government agencies and commercial enterprises specializing in automation technology. Our research revealed that despite much effort in this area over the past ten years, a single tool to automate planning, execution, sustainment, and recovery of air base operations in a contingency environment does not exist but is readily attainable. This study found there are a variety of government and commercial software products and information databases currently available which can be used to build the foundation of an automated CE beddown planning tool.
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