This paper considers two aspects of the United States Air Force analytical and experimental damage tolerance design requirements for metallic airframes: the locations of initial damage and the accuracy of crack growth analysis. Following a summary of the requirements, an assessment is made of the validity of the initial continuing damage locations specified in the requirements. Guidelines are provided for selecting the initial primary damage location needed but not specified in the requirements. Analyses and test results are presented for typical aircraft structure (that is, chordwise splices, spanwise splices, stringer-reinforced continuous skin, 2-bay wing panels, etc.). The analytical and experimental results are correlated in order to assess the accuracy of the state-of-the-art analytical capability to satisfy the Air Force damage tolerance requirements.