Design Defects that Lead to Failures

WHEN a new aeroplane is produced, every effort is made to ensure that it will be free from the “bugs”, to use that expressive word of the aircraft industry, experienced on previous types. This goal is usually attained, but unfortunately the sum total of defects does not decrease, mainly because new and comparatively untried ideas will have been incorporated to improve the new aircraft. Defects arising from these will most probably outweigh those obviated by experience, and so, until finality in design is reached, there will continue to be design defects. Another factor is that the other aircraft with which the comparison is being made will usually have been in service for some time and their teething ailments largely eliminated and thus forgotten.