The application of the wings with a high aspect ratio for future-oriented transport category aircraft is being considered. Such a solution makes it possible to increase fuel efficiency by reducing induced drag. This goal is achieved by increasing the wingspan, when the wings made of composite materials are used. The wings of an increased span complicate the arrangement of the aircraft in the existing infrastructure of airports. To eliminate this drawback, the application of folding wingtips was considered. The effect of such a folding device on the mass of the airplane was estimated. The approach to estimating the mass of composite structures with folding wingtips has been proposed. A conceptual assessment of the Boeing 737 and A-320 aircraft with higher aspect ratio composite wings was performed.

The safety and risks of civil aircraft operation depend on a lot of factors. One of them is the structural features of an aircraft. In aviation history, there are examples when “non-rational” design solution was the reason for crashes, but there are examples about successful civil aircraft that have “rational” structure and long operational time without critical incidents. So, how can a designer provide high safety of level and decrease incidents’ risks in time of a regular aircraft operation? This chapter partly can help to understand some reasons and approaches for providing “rational” aircraft structure. Design solutions can be divided into some groups by some common features and requirements. They are maintainability, serviceability, accessibility, labor effort decreasing, weather requirements, transportation, etc. All these groups depend on engineers’ structural solutions. They are interdependent and often contradictory. In other words, if one of the features will be better, another will be worse at the same time. And, a designer must remember all the time about this and try to find compromise between different requirements. The successful commercial aircraft is composed of a set of rational design solutions for these specific tasks.

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