Identification and control of aircraft key assembly characteristics

Concept of key assembly characteristics was proposed according to structure and assembly characteristics of aircraft product. Method to identify and control key assembly characteristics was systematically analyzed. Key assembly characteristics were difficult to be identified in the design phase, it needed to refer to assembly scheme. Datum flow chain was addressed to present the accumulation of variation among joints. The most error stacked joints were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to identify key assembly characteristics. The key assembly characteristics were controlled by flown-down to sub assembly and compensation. An example was provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method by identifying and controling the key assembly characteristics of an aircraft vertical tail.