The U.S. Air Force operates a 6000-aircraft fleet with an average age of more than 24 years, substantially older than the oldest major U.S. airline.  One of the drawbacks to operating such an old fleet safely is a relatively high structural inspection workload to ensure that damage tolerance is preserved.  This presentation discusses the need to adopt radically new approaches to the design and development of aircraft structures.  Risk and reliability design approaches will be highlighted and a potential concept that captures this philosophy will be discussed.  The "care-free structures" concept, first proposed by Hinrichsen, suggests that structures be designed not for minimum weight, but for long crack-free lives, with the attendant savings from greatly reduced maintenance.  Studies have shown that less than ten percent of wing structure is sized by fatigue, so the weight penalty of doubling the fatigue life of a transport wing is only a few percent.  When combined with modern structural materials tailored to a highly supportable, inspectable structure, the overall weight of such a structure can be reduced over current all-aluminum wings while the life cycle costs are substantially lower.