Modern passenger and cargo planes are designed for long-term service of at
least thirty years. Stability of the properties of the structural materials
used in planes over their entire life is a necessary requirement. The main
structural material for a passenger plane is high-strength aluminum alloys
, of which are Al - Li alloys the most promising. The present paper is devo
ted to Al - Li alloys and concerns the nature of the thermal stability, its
dependence on various structural factors, and possible ways of stabilizing
the properties.