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Economic and market conditions have resulted in the use of commercial jet transport airplanes well beyond their design service objective (DSO). Air transport industry consensus is that older jet transport airplanes will continue to be in service despite an anticipated substantial increase in the required maintenance. Based on economical considerations, established operators may replace their airplanes beyond DSO with new ones. At the same time these older airplanes are sold to operators with little or no knowledge and experience of the aging airplane maintenance programs. Discusses the damage tolerance concept, its relation to airplane age and its evolution that is fail‐safe to damage tolerance based maintenance certification for jet transport airplanes. Also, this paper will discuss a process for upgrading structural inspection programs for older airplanes to damage tolerance standard per MSG‐3 Rev. 2 analysis. Finally, sub‐surface corrosion on principal airplane structures and its effect on airplane safety will be discussed.

Discusses the need for structural maintenance programmes to check the airworthiness of planes and detect damage. Describes the prevention and control of corrosion along with its causes, and examines aviation safety assurance programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how to develop a methodology to set up an initial maintenance program for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) following the well-known Steering Maintenance Group logic method (MSG-3) and taking into account safety concerns based on items probabilities of failure. That is why it is stated that maintenance program is based on reliability principles.

The proposed methodology follows the MSG-3 framework applied to civil aircraft but where the determination of each probability of failure is achieved applying a morphological analysis. These probabilities are then affected by some factors to calculate the adjusted values to the specific conditions (design, operation and environment) under which the system is expected to operate.

Main findings are related to the applicability of the morphological analysis on the developing of an initial maintenance program when there is a lack of data that disable the establishment of a coherent maintenance program.

Limitations are related to the absence of a legislative framework consensual in Europe for certification of UAVs and the lack of data concerning UAVs failure modes, causes and their probability of failure.

The developed work and the methodology proposed may be useful for UAVs maintenance program engineers and technicians when developing new systems.

The originality is based on the use of morphological analysis for UAVs to determine the items probabilities of failure when there is a no-data problem. Based on the referred analysis, it is possible to create an initial maintenance program for UAVs.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss changes to MIL-STD-1530C “Aircraft Structural Integrity Program” to account for the increased usage of composites in aircraft structures.

The evolution of the Aircraft Structural Integrity Program is presented and the five tasks that comprise the program are assessed for compatibility with composite aircraft structures.

This paper identifies a number of recommended changes to MIL-STD-1530C to ensure that the unique behaviour of composites is considered within the Aircraft Structural Integrity Program.

This paper recommends changes to MIL-STD-1530C to account for composite aircraft structures, thus providing assurance compatibility of the Aircraft Structural Integrity Program with composite materials.

The second day of the Aerospace Corrosion Control Symposium, held at the Rai, Amsterdam, commenced with a paper presented by Aydin Akdeniz of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, USA. Entitled “Integrated Structural Maintenance Programme”, it outlined surveys conducted by Boeing of selected ageing aircraft to review the condition of the structure along with the airlines' maintenance practices. The results suggest that there is a great variation in the actual levels or degree of structural corrosion in the aircraft fleets. The paper gave a background to corrosion prevention and control programmes (CPCPs) and outlined a procedure for consolidating the CPCP with other structural maintenance tasks. It concluded that properly scheduled structural inspection and correctly applied ageing aircraft programmes establish minimum standards to ensure continued airworthiness (see Figure 1).

This study aims to present a diagnosis method to inspect the structure health for aging transport aircraft based on the postflight data in severe clear-air turbulence at transonic flight. The purpose of this method development is to assist certificate holder of aircraft maintenance factory as a complementary tool for the structural maintenance program to ensure that the transport aircraft fits airworthiness standards.

In this study, the numerical approach to analyze the characteristics of flight dynamic and static aeroelasticity for two four-jet transport aircraft will be presented. One of these two four-jet transport aircraft is an aging one. Another one is used to demonstrate the order of magnitude of the static aeroelastic behaviors. The nonlinear unsteady aerodynamic models are established through flight data mining and the fuzzy-logic modeling technique based on postflight data. The first and second derivatives of flight dynamic and static aeroelastic behaviors, respectively, are then estimated by using these aerodynamic models.

Although the highest dynamic pressure of aging aircraft is lower, the highest absolute value of static aeroelastic effects response to the wing of aging aircraft is about 3.05 times larger than normal one; the magnitude variations of angles of attack are similar for both aircrafts; the highest absolute value of the static aeroelastic effects response to the empennage of aging aircraft is about 29.67 times larger than normal one in severe clear-air turbulence. The stabilizer of aging aircraft has irregular deviations with obvious jackscrew assembly problems, as found in this study.

A lack of the measurement data of vertical wind speed sensor on board to verify the estimated values of damping term is one of the research limitations of this study. This research involved potential problem monitoring of structure health for transport aircraft in different weights, different sizes and different service years. In the future research, one can consider more structural integrity issues for other types of aircraft.

It can be realized from this study that the structure of aging transport aircraft may have potential safety threat. Therefore, when the airline managed aging transport aircraft, it ought to be conducted comprehensive and in-depth inspections to reduce such safety risks and establish a complete set of safety early warning measures to deal with the potential problem of aircraft aging.

It can be realized that the structure of aging transport aircraft has potential safety threat. The airline managed aging transport aircraft; it should conduct comprehensive and in-depth inspections to reduce safety risks and establish a complete set of safety early warning measures.

This method can be used to assist airlines to monitor aging transport aircraft as a complementary tool of structural maintenance program to improve aviation safety, operation and operational efficiency.

MAINTAINING older aircraft to conform to a continuing standard of structural airworthiness has become a major part of any civil or military operator's activities. Emphasised by recent events, achievement of this level of maintenance has become more rigorous as knowledge of the behaviour of aircraft structures has progressed. Many of the issues involved were discussed at a recent Royal Aeronautical Society conference where operators, manufacturers and regulatory bodies made their views known.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.