Certifying airworthiness

MIL-HDBK-5 is an especially valuable tool for the Federal Aviation Administration and is essential to the health of the entire aviation manufacturing industry.

Engineers involved in aerospace materials development, or the structures side of aviation, should know about the evolution of Metallic Material Properties Development and Standardization (MMPDS) and its current precarious state of existence. As many structural engineers are aware, the MMPDS is also known as Metallic Materials and Elements for Aerospace Vehicle Structures, which itself is commonly referred to as Military Handbook 5 (MIL-HDBK-5).

Since the advent of modern aviation, this handbook has been an indispensable fundamental tool for design engineers. For Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) engineers, the handbook has been a corner stone document used almost exclusively to establish a statistical basis for metallic material approvals.