KEYNOTE LECTURE TO THE FOURTH Al-Li CONFERENCE

Abstract
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the organizing committee of this 4th Aluminium-Lithium Conference, that has given me the opportunity of addressing this distinguished audience. Having been with Airbus Industrie for the past 12 years, I will obviously speak from a civil airplane manufacturer's point of view. I hope to be able to talk, to a certain extent at least, for our industry as a whole ; an industry that has a reputation for its constant drive to produce better products in terms of technical capability, commercial viability and safety. Those who have failed in these areas are not present here today, which does not necessarily mean, that those who are not present have all failed. Although most of you, ladies and gentlemen, are devoted to metallurgy and the development of advanced alloys, let me first refer to the basic environment in which we, as aircraft manufacturers, have to operate.