The influence of artificial defects like foil delaminations, notches and impact damage in carbon epoxy laminates was considered in terms of experimental observations. Three types of RTM-laminates, specimens without defects, with foil delaminations and with notches, were produced to examine the monotonic and cyclic tension properties. The results showed that the tensile modulus was neither influenced by the foil delamination, nor by the notches in the laminates. The tensile strength of the defect free specimens and of the specimens with foil delamination was the same, but the notches reduced the strength dramatically. In the cyclic tests a slight tendency for lower cycles to failure for the specimens with foil delamination and a significant reduction of the cycles to failure for the notched specimens can be detected compared to the defect free specimens. In all formulations already distinctively before failure a drop off in stiffness could be measured. Different kinds of prepregs were used to investigate specimens with and without impact damage by compression and by 3-point bending tests. The results of the monotonic and cyclic tests showed, that all impact damaged laminates had obviously lower strengths and that the cycle life durability was detrimentally influenced by the impact damage.