wrote:
On Jun 9, 9:45 am, wrote:
On Jun 8, 8:41 pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:





wrote:
On Jun 8, 6:58 pm, SF wrote:
The June 4, 2009 issue of Machine Design has a Sparrow Hawk glider on
the cover. The article does a very good job of covering all three of
Windward Performance's current sailplane projects. The Sparrow Hawk
13m ultralight, the Duck Hawk 15m racing plane and the Perlan
(designed to break the world altitude record). If you don't receive a
copy of Machine Design you can see the entire article on line at:
http://machinedesign.com/article/win...esigns-and-man...
I find it amazing that the SSA was unwilling to print articles on
Windward Performance, the SparrowHawk and the DuckHawk in Soaring.
Soaring has published at least two articles on the SparrowHawk: Jan
2001, July 2002. An article on Perlan Project, including Windward
Performance's involvement in it, is due out sometime this year. As far
as I know, no one has written an article on the DuckHawk that adequately
describes the project, and so no article has been published in Soaring.
I think that's reasonable.
I'm hoping Jim Payne will have an article on his 1258 km flight in a
SparrowHawk!

Eric,

I believe those articles can be put in the classification of acient
history. I am talking about the many recent developments. How
could a machine design publication scoop Soaring on new trends in
sailplane design and manufacture?

They were published years ago, but are still current information on the
SparrowHawk. Some work on self-launching versions is not reported on,
but that will come when Windward Performance is ready to present it.


I agree with Richard - I seem to recall an earlier post containing the
text of an article about the DuckHawk that was offered to Soaring, but
rejected as too much of an advertisement for the company. Too bad
Soaring has higher standards than "Machine Design".

My experience is Soaring is willing to publish articles on Windward
Performance, as long as they are "good" articles. The DuckHawk article
posted here was, in my opinion, a "rough draft". To bring it up to
Soaring magazine standards, it needed more detail and focus. This would
require collaborating with Greg Cole to get the accuracy and depth of
detail required, but I don't think the author did that, and perhaps it
wasn't possible.

Publishing it here was appropriate and obviously welcomed by many. Other
venues would be regional, association, or club bulletins, or websites
(followed by a notice on RAS of it's availability). Soaring magazine
isn't the only way, or always the best way, to get information to the
soaring community.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* Sections on Mode S, TPAS, ADS-B, Flarm, more

* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org