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The changing scene of structural airworthiness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

W. G. Heath
W. G. Heath*
Affiliation:
British Aerospace Aircraft Group, Manchester Division
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Extract

‘Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place’

Lewis Carroll:Through the Looking Glass

There are many examples in his two Alice books where Lewis Carroll, perhaps unwittingly, provides analogies with the world of reality. The lines quoted above are often used to portray the rapidly changing scenario in which we struggle to maintain the status quo of our social and political lives. The same is true in the world of structures: the scenario continually shifts as we discover new hazards which threaten our products. Aircraft speeds have increased, operators have demanded longer service lives, new materials have been introduced with their own susceptibilities, and so we must develop more comprehensive design requirements and better design techniques to ensure that each new aircraft maintains the existing standards of airworthiness—or at least the standards we imagine to exist.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 84 , Issue 831 , April 1980, pp. 81 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1980 

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