Aerospace

Landing gear components are the most structurally critical deep hole drilling jobs I have taken on. Every strut, axle, and pin carries the full weight of an aircraft during takeoff, landing, and taxi. A hidden drilling defect — a chip notch, a deviated bore, a surface tear — can become a crack initiation site that grounds a fleet. The materials are ultra-high-strength steels hardened past 50 HRC, the bores run deep, and the inspection standard is zero defects. ...

Titanium is the material that separates experienced deep hole drilling shops from the rest. I have drilled more titanium holes than I can count — here is what I have learned about making them consistently. Every titanium alloy behaves differently. Get the parameters wrong on one alloy and you lose the tool, the part, or both. Get them right across the board and titanium becomes predictable. I cover the broader aerospace deep hole drilling landscape in another article. This one is specifically about titanium parameters, tool life, and coolant — the three things that matter most when the material is titanium. ...

Aerospace hydraulic actuators are similar to industrial cylinders but with tighter tolerances and more exotic materials. I covered industrial hydraulic cylinders in an earlier post; this is about the aerospace version. The jump from industrial to aerospace is not just about hitting tighter numbers – it changes how I plan the entire drilling operation from setup to inspection. The main differences are material, tolerance, and documentation. The material is typically 15-5PH stainless steel instead of 42CrMo4. The tolerance is +0.005mm instead of +0.02mm. Every part gets tracked by serial number with full inspection records. These factors multiply the setup time and require a more disciplined approach to the drilling process. ...

When Aircraft Structures Need Deep Holes Aircraft structural components like wing spars, bulkheads, and floor beams sometimes need through-holes for wiring harnesses, fluid lines, or fastener access. I have drilled these on CNC gun drilling machines with standard parameters. The holes are usually not structural themselves — they are pathways for systems that need to pass through the structure. But the parts they go through are highly stressed, so the drilling process cannot introduce stress risers or heat-affected zones. ...

Aerospace deep hole drilling is the most demanding work I’ve done. The materials are expensive, the tolerances are tight, and the cost of a scrapped part can be five figures. Every hole needs to be right the first time. The main applications I’ve seen are landing gear components, engine shafts, and hydraulic actuators. They all have the same challenge: deep holes in tough materials with no margin for error. The Material Challenge Aerospace parts are typically titanium (Ti-6Al-4V), Inconel (718 or 625), or high-strength steel like 300M. All of them are harder to drill than standard engineering materials. ...