The 1965 edition of the book "Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures", contained over 950 pages. As time passes it is normal to expect expanded or new material to be added to later editions of a book. Thus it appeared desirable to add some 380 pages of additional material, which meant that a new edition would contain over 1300 pages or too large for a single volume. 

A decision was made to issue the new edition in two volumes. This two volume edition was practically ready for binding, when a further final decision was made to remain with one volume edition and place the 380 pages of new material referred to above in 3 separate, rather small sized books, Information on these 3 separate books is given on the 3 pages following the Table of Contents. The reader will note that these 3 books deal with special subjects in the structural design field and are available.

This new 1973 one volume edition presents 2 major changes from the 1965 edition. Chapter A23 has been completely revised and expanded by a new co-author, namely, Dr. Joseph A. Wolf, formerly on the faculty of UCLA and now with the General Motors Research Laboratories. Dr. Wolf had the cooperation of Dr. A. F. Schmitt, the author of the A23 Chapter in the 1965 edition. The other major change is the replacement of Chapter C13 on the subject of fatigue in the 1965 edition by a new chapter on fatigue. The Author of this new Ch~pter C13 is C. R. Smith, a widely known authority in the broad field of fatigue of materials and structures.

This author expresses his thanks to the several co-authors for checking over their material. Only minor corrections have resulted from this check.

A considerable amount of material in various chapters by the author made use of reports, manuals, drawings and photographs supplied to the author by many aerospace companies, in particular, Boeing of Seattle; Douglas Co.; General Dynamics, Fort Worth and San Diego Divisions; Martin in Denver; North American Aviation, Columbus and Tulsa Divisions; and the Vought Division of LTV Corp. The author is deeply grateful for this assistance and cooperation.

As a final note, if any reference in the Chapters of this book refers to Volume 2 it should be discarded by the reader.