Why Aerospace Fasteners Are the Unsung Heroes of Aviation, And How I Learned to Source Them Right

I have spent years working around aviation procurement, and if there is one thing I have come to deeply respect, it is the aerospace fastener. Most people walk past a commercial aircraft and marvel at its sheer size, the elegance of its wings, or the roar of its turbofan engines. But I find myself thinking about something far less glamorous — the hundreds of thousands of bolts, rivets, screws, nuts, and pins holding that entire machine together at 35,000 feet.

It sounds almost absurd when you put it that way. Yet the reality is that without properly specified, certified, and traceable aerospace fasteners, modern aviation as we know it simply would not exist.

This is what I want to share with you today — a genuine look at what aerospace and aviation fasteners are, why their history matters, and what I have personally learned about sourcing them correctly.

A Brief History That Changed Everything

To appreciate why aerospace fasteners are engineered the way they are today, you have to go back to the early twentieth century.

The first generation of aircraft were constructed largely from wood and fabric. The joining methods of that era simple nails, wire lashings, and glue were sufficient for the fragile, slow machines of the day. But as aviation ambitions grew, so did the structural demands on every component.

By the 1930s, the industry began its decisive shift from wood to metal airframes. This was a pivotal moment. Metal-to-metal joining required an entirely new generation of fastening solutions. According to the Wikipedia article on rivets

the earliest concept of a one-sided blind fastening method was patented as far back as 1916. But it was the Second World War that truly accelerated fastener development, with an estimated 3 billion rivets produced between 1939 and 1945 alone to support wartime aircraft manufacturing.

The strength of an aircraft is not measured in its wingspan alone, it is measured in every bolt, every rivet, every pin that holds it together under the extremes of flight.

The famous Supermarine Spitfire, one of Britain's most iconic fighter aircraft of World War II, relied heavily on speed fastening systems specifically engineered for aviation, a direct ancestor of the precision aerospace fasteners used in modern aircraft today. You can read more about the Spitfire's engineering heritage on its Wikipedia page.

From those wartime innovations, the aerospace fastener industry evolved into the rigorous, standards-driven discipline it is today.

What Makes an Aerospace Fastener Different

I am often asked by people outside the industry: "Isn't a bolt just a bolt?" The honest answer is — absolutely not. Not when it comes to aviation.

Aerospace fasteners must survive conditions that would destroy ordinary hardware. Think about what a fastener on a commercial jet endures during a single flight: extreme temperature differentials (from ground-level heat to -60°C at cruising altitude), vibration cycles, aerodynamic stress, pressurization loads, and repeated mechanical fatigue over thousands of flight hours.

The main categories of aerospace and aviation fasteners I work with regularly include:

Bolts — The workhorse of aircraft structural assembly. Most bolts used in aircraft structures are AN bolts, NAS internal wrenching bolts, MS bolts, or close-tolerance bolts. They are typically fabricated from cadmium-plated steel, corrosion-resistant steel, or titanium alloys. Their primary role is bearing shear and tensile loads — attaching wings to fuselages, mounting engine pylons, and securing landing gear assemblies.

Rivets — Perhaps the most iconic aerospace fastener. A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener with a smooth cylindrical shaft and a head on one end. Once inserted through matched holes in two material sheets, the tail is upset (deformed) to create a second head, locking the joint permanently. Rivets are used extensively across the fuselage skin panels of nearly every commercial aircraft in service today.

Screws — The most abundant fasteners in any aerospace structure. Unlike bolts, aerospace screws are generally made from slightly lower-strength materials and feature a higher helix on their external threads. Structural screws can bear loads comparable to bolts and are used extensively in panel and access door assemblies.

Nuts — Always used alongside bolts or screws, aviation nuts come in non-locking and self-locking varieties. Self-locking nuts are critical in high-vibration environments where an ordinary nut could gradually back off over time — a potentially catastrophic outcome in a flying aircraft.

Washers — Constructed from stronger and more lightweight materials than standard hardware-store washers, aerospace washers distribute clamping load and protect softer structural surfaces from damage during assembly.

Hi-Lok Pins — A personal favourite of mine from a design standpoint. These two-part fasteners consist of a threaded pin and a collar engineered to detach at a precise preload value, guaranteeing consistent, repeatable clamping force every single time. They are widely used in wing and fuselage splice joints.

Lockbolts (Huck Bolts) — A hybrid between a bolt and a rivet, lockbolts use a special swaged collar in place of a nut. They are used extensively in landing gear assemblies and wing splice fittings due to their exceptional shear strength and ease of installation.

The Standards That Govern Everything

One of the most important things I have learned in aerospace procurement is that certification is not optional, it is everything.

The primary quality management standard governing aerospace fastener manufacturing and distribution is AS9100, a rigorous standard developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for the aviation, space, and defense industries. Distributors who handle these parts must additionally meet AS9120B, which is specifically tailored to quality management in the distribution supply chain.

Beyond AS9100, the FAA AC 00-56B accreditation from the Federal Aviation Administration is a critical benchmark. It recognizes aviation parts distributors who voluntarily comply with a rigorous set of industry-developed standards for parts traceability, quality control, and supplier verification.

What this means practically for anyone procuring aerospace fasteners: if your supplier cannot demonstrate these certifications, you are taking a risk that no aviation program can afford.

My Personal Experience Sourcing Aerospace and Industrial Parts

I want to be direct with you here, because I think the sourcing side of aerospace fasteners is genuinely underappreciated.

Early in my procurement career, I made the mistake that many do, prioritizing price over provenance. I sourced a batch of fasteners from an uncertified supplier at a significant cost saving. It seemed like a smart decision at the time. It was not. The lot failed incoming inspection, documentation was incomplete, and the traceability chain was broken. The cost of the delay, the re-sourcing, and the quality audit that followed far exceeded any savings I thought I had made.

Since then, I have become rigorous about working only with certified, accredited distributors who maintain a verified supply chain. One platform I have found genuinely useful for industrial and aerospace parts procurement is ASAP Industrials, a distributor owned and operated by ASAP Semiconductor. They carry an inventory of over six billion new and obsolete parts from more than 75,000 manufacturers, maintain ISO 9001:2015 certification and FAA AC 00-56B accreditation, and operate a strict No China Sourcing policy, meaning every part shipped originates from within the United States. Their 15-minute RFQ response time has also saved me on more than one tight timeline.

Why Traceability Is the Non-Negotiable

In aerospace procurement, a fastener without a traceable paper trail is effectively worthless, regardless of how good it looks physically.

According to the FAA, every part installed on a certified aircraft must be traceable back to an approved manufacturer. This means documentation of the manufacturer, the lot number, the material certification, and the inspection records must accompany every aerospace fastener from production through final installation.

This is why the rise of counterfeit parts (often called "bogus parts" in the industry) is taken so seriously. The FAA's Suspected Unapproved Parts (SUP) program exists specifically to track and remove counterfeit or unapproved components from the supply chain. Fasteners are among the most commonly counterfeited aviation components, precisely because they look identical to genuine parts on the surface.

The Future of Aerospace Fasteners

The industry is not standing still. As aircraft designs push toward greater fuel efficiency and sustainability, material innovation in fasteners is keeping pace.

Titanium fasteners, once reserved for the most weight-critical military applications, are now increasingly common in commercial airframes like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, where composite structures require fasteners that are both lightweight and corrosion-resistant. You can explore the engineering details of the Boeing 787's composite airframe on its Wikipedia page.

Specialized alloys, advanced coatings, and new manufacturing techniques like cold working of fastener holes (which significantly improves fatigue life) are all active areas of development. The aerospace fastener of tomorrow will be lighter, stronger, and even more precisely manufactured than what we use today.

Final Thoughts

Every time I look at a commercial aircraft, I see the fasteners. I see the thousands of engineering decisions, the material selections, the torque specifications, the certification trails, that make controlled flight at altitude possible for millions of passengers every single day.

Aerospace fasteners are not a footnote in aviation history. They are, in many ways, the story itself.

If you work in aerospace procurement, aviation maintenance, or defense logistics, I hope this gives you a deeper appreciation for the components you source every day. And if you are new to the field, let this be your introduction to one of aviation's most important, and most overlooked, disciplines.