Many aircraft in service today have already achieved lives considerably greater than those originally anticipated by their designers. One thinks of aircraft like the Douglas DC-3, still going strong in many parts of the world after 40 years. Even aircraft like the Vickers Viscount, the world’s first successful turbo-prop air liner, are much ‘longer in the tooth’ than one might at first think; the oldest airframe still in regular service left its makers 27 years ago. Geriatric is the word which has been coined to describe such aircraft and, based on its dictionary definition of ‘care of the old’, the description is probably apt. However, this term is often wrongly thought of as synonymous with senile which, from its dictionary definition of ‘feebleness of old age’, is most inappropriate to such aircraft. It is interesting to examine first the longevity of current aircraft, secondly the application of the science of geriatrics to them and finally the means by which the expectation of life of new types of aircraft may be increased.