In order to reduce maintenance work and to improve long-time reliability, the invention provides a health monitoring method for checking a functionality of a flight control surface driving apparatus (104) using at least one load sensor (110) for sensing a load imposed on a control surface drive device (106), the method comprising at least one of the steps: a) comparing at least one load sensor output signal (62-1) of the at least one load sensor (110) with at least one first threshold (T1-L, T1-U) while operating the control surface drive device (106) to move the at least one control surface (102) to a predetermined extended position, b) comparing at least one load sensor output signal (62-1, 62-2) of the at least one load sensor (110) with at least one second threshold (T2-L, T2-U) while operating the control surface drive device (106) to move the at least one control surface (102) from an extended position to a retracted position. Further, a flight control surface drive apparatus (104), a flight control system (100) and an aircraft (10) comprising a control device (112) configured to automatically conduct such health monitoring method are described.