Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)In this paper, we have developed an analytic method for describing Airy-type beams truncated by finite apertures. This new approach is based on suitable superposition of exponentially decaying Airy beams. Regarding both theoretical and numerical aspects, the results here shown are interesting because they have been quickly evaluated through a simple analytic solution, whose propagation characteristics agree with those already published in literature through the use of numerical methods. To demonstrate the method's potentiality three different truncated beams have been analyzed: ideal Airy, Airy-Gauss and Airy-Exponential. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America20181997219977Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)