Originally Posted by
davidad
Airplanes are made with aluminum and are inspected regularly because the material has a finite fatigue life.
Well, kinda. Airplanes are made up of many materials. A 787 is 50% composites, 20% aluminum and 15% titanium. You can bet that Boeing would not be using titanium metal on that airplane is there were any concerns about the metal becoming brittle with age. Read for yourself here:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aer...icle_04_2.html
Titanium has been widely used in military and commercial aircraft for many years for it's strength, light weight and resistance to corrosion and fatigue.