Abstract: Scheduled maintenance and inspection are the foundation of finding of structural damage with related repair. Based on the analysis of foreign literatures, two enhanced visual inspections which were used in USA and Europe in recent years were introduced, focusing on the basic concept, principle, construction, technical characteristic, and applications. The enhanced visual inspections are sensitive to the shape change of structural surface, including surface crack, corrosion pillowing, impact dent and other abnormal conditions. The methods are fast and easy to used, which can both avoid economic loss due to long time stop, and be important significance to the safety of aircraft structure.