In this paper, several concepts of structural health monitoring and their applications are introduced. The requirements of structural health monitoring are discussed, and the typical engineering cases of aircraft structural health monitoring technology are analyzed with the examples of F-35 and A400M. Then, the individual aircraft tracking and life control of typical aircraft, the load spectrum survey and life prediction of an aging aircraft are given, and the research on damage monitoring method and the main limitation of its application are discussed. The main idea of aircraft structural health monitoring system design and basic flow of life prediction are put forward, and main tasks of structural health monitoring including selection of control points and flight parameters, construction of load/ strain equation, calculation of damage and fatigue life, results output and verification of the equation are also introduced . Finally, the future research of aircraft structural health monitoring is prospected.