New policies for improving and maintaining aircraft safety have been welcomed and adopted by both American and UK military forces. In the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many planes and helicopters displayed serious weaknesses and even cost the lives of soldiers due to their malfunctioning. Both governments have carried out a full review of all the vehicles and have come up with a new set of rules to influence how they are built.Below are details of parts of the new legislation

Double testing. Each aircraft that is built and supplied to either the US and UK armed services will also go through another testing process by an independent aviation group. Any issues that this group identifies, even as small as faulty solenoids or door hinges, must be addressed by the armed force who owns the vehicle. There will futher more be a practice put in place where information about specific hazards or faults can be shared between forces, so that both can take action to enhance their vehicles

Regular safety review. A major issue with many military vehicles is that after it has been in service for 5+ years, its built-in safety features are well out of date. The new legislation states that every 4 years, each vehicle must have a full safety review and any out of date features must be replaced or brought up to current standards

Annual maintenance. Regular maintenance of vehicles is usually a high priority for both the US and UK military, however there is often a large disparity between maintenance policies of different unit locations and armed services. Under the new system, every vehicle will be submitted to another independent body each year for a full service to replace and multicore cables, damaged circuit boards or mil spec cables for example. This will help standardise the maintenance process and should reduce the chances of any vehicles being overlooked.