Airframe "life"
 

Air airframes "lifed"?

eg. I still see B727 flying around, and they're OLD. Not to mention in GA you still see 1960's Cessnas flying around!

What about new gen aircraft eg. 787, A350 etc. Do they have to be retired after a certain number of hours / cycles?

Yes the aircraft have a Limit of Validity (LOV) in both Hours & Cycles, which now includes Boeing aircraft also.

Lighter unpressurised side of stuff didn't tend to have any until of late, Cessna then lifed the 152 at about 30,000 Hrs.
I seem to remember a PA28 has a wing inspection listed at about 60,000 Hrs plus lol..

Life extension programs notwithstanding of course. :ok:

All british aircraft post WW II have fatigue life's

In the RN Heron I owned it had a fatigue meter fitted.

The Heron had two fatigue lives 15000 and then change the spar then an absolute 30000 hours

My aircraft had 16000 hours TT but a fatigue life of only 12000.

I soon learnt to religiously ensure the fatigue meter was working.

Also discovered if you did a sector length of 3 hours in calm weather the meter only read around 1.2 hours.