Originally Posted by leonardotmnt
Not quite sure of the physics but is the whole airplane to MTB analogy kind of flawed? Airplanes aren't bashing off the ground over and over...well hopefully they aren't. If a plane is aerodynamic at least it seems like it might not take as much stress as you'd think. Not sure though.
While it's true that the structure of an aircraft doesn't recieve ground impact of the same sort as a bike, one could look at the spar design on a wing and see that the loading is similar to that of a bicycle frame for instance. Also, airframes do receive quite a bit of dynamic forces and shock-step load inputs have to be taken into account.