This book appears to consist of a collection of the author's teaching notes. Highly mathematical (fine), but utterly lacking in the "what this formula means in the real world" department. Aren't we as students trying to understand where all the math is leading us?

Most annoying of all, throughout the book the author uses the following: "It is easy to prove that..." Well, I'm sure it is easy for him to prove it. He's the f'ing teacher. But for us, the students, it's NOT trivial, nor should it be treated as such.

I concur with the other review. Stay as far away from this text as possible.

23 of 24 found the following review helpful:


Short and Not Descriptive  Dec 15, 2001 By Dianne Roberts
I am an Aerospace Engineering student and had this book for a flight mechanics class. Honestly, for the money, this book is a total waste. First off it is relatively very short (...). If you're going to spend that much money on a book this size, make sure its pages are pure gold or the book unlocks the meaning of life. Second off it simply states and quickly derives complicated structural theories without much introduction or explanation, and provides no application of the theories to actual aircraft. In fact there isn't even a drawing of an aircraft anywhere in the book. Honestly a giant disappointment, and just like my college to make us waste our money on this unintelligible leaflet. Surf around for ten minutes on Amazon and you will find at least ten books on the same subject that are larger, more in depth, more explanatory, provide real life applications of the course material, and have appendices with material and atmospheric properties for the same price.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:


TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY  Feb 06, 2004 By F. Chénard
I HAD TO BUY THIS BOOK FOR MY STRUCTURE CLASS IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING; PAYING SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE REALLY AGGRAVATED ME. THIS BOOK HAS NO CONTENT, THERE IS NO APPLICATION TO REAL LIFE PROBLEMS, IT IS PURE GARBAGE. THE TEACHER FOLLOWED EXACTLY THIS TEXTBOOK FOR HIS CLASS; I DON'T KNOW MORE ABOUT AIRCRAFT STRUCTURES THAN I DID BEFORE TAKING THAT CLASS. 1 STAR IS WAY TOO MUCH!!! STAY AWAY FROM IT!!!!!!!!

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:


Use a different book  Jul 18, 2006 By nick "nick"
I had to use this book in my structures class. I had no prior experience with structures before, and this book was unable to fill the gap. As a result, I've got a D in a class, and I will have to re-take it. If you have to use the Sun's book, supplement it with "Aircraft structures for engineering students" 3rd ed by T.H.G. Megson ISBN 0-340-70588-4. It follows the same notation as Sun (even some drawings are identical), and it's much, much, much more thorough. The Sun's book by itself can be useful only to people with prior experience with structures who just have to use this particular book.

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:


The Good and the Bad, mostly the Bad.  Dec 11, 2004 By Stephen Beirne
I was required to purchase this book for my Junior level A&AE Structural Analysis Course. Chock full of theory and derivations, it doesn't set forth a clear path for learning, but rather a thicket in which problems sets are solved by wildly searching backward in the book for equations and examples in order to help make some sense of the problem at hand. While the book is full of good problems, the concepts tested in the problems are not always clearly explained (What the heck is shear flow anyway?).

This book is recommended as a junior or senior level structures text, but how well it is received depends highly upon the Professor's lecture style (Straight from the text?(=bad) or supplemental to the text?(=not as bad)).

The Bad outweigh the Good.

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