A Kid Flying a Duckhawk?

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:23:41 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Having fun in the DuckHawk 15m sailplane

By: Daniel Sazhin



In early September, I had a fantastic day of flying at Blairstown Airport, the culmination of which was having the opportunity to fly Windward Performance's new DuckHawk. I had just flown the club Grob Twin Astir with my brother, promptly falling out and not exactly having one of my best landings in it. It seems that Bill Thar did not see it and upon greeting him, he offered me to fly the DuckHawk! I was flabbergasted and immediately agreed. The glider was already assembled, so Bill promptly introduced me to the cockpit and gave the pre-flight briefing. We pushed the glider out to the line, which was easy because at its 440 LBS empty weight it is just like pushing my club's 1-26E around!



While I have not flown any high performance single-place gliders before, my many years of flying the Condor Soaring Simulator have allowed me to be familiar with most of the composite sailplanes in the field. I did not feel nervous about being able to control the plane and I was excited to try it out. The first takeoff was very easy and the DuckHawk had great control authority and responsiveness. There was no need for any of the takeoff tricks found on some other sailplanes such as negative flap settings prior to takeoff or open spoilers for increased aileron effectiveness. The visibility was great and it was easy to stay behind the tow plane because the DuckHawk didn’t get thrown around in the turbulence. Unfortunately, upon releasing I was unable to find much lift except for one light thermal which amounted to zero-sink for a while. Pulling into that thermal, it was quite a fantastic sensation bringing the flaps to 10-15 degrees and feeling the glider “grip” the air. The DuckHawk was able to slow down to a tad over 40 knots and provides the pilot with a lot of feedback from the air. What was definitely noticeable was that the glider does everything you want it to. There is no feeling of “fighting the glider” like in some other gliders I had flown. The DuckHawk handled great at the low speed end and the controls were not twitchy, but yet very responsive. I liked the fact that there is no elevator trim; instead wherever one places the stick, it stays in that position. The electric flaps are easily controlled in manual mode using a switch on the stick. The flaps move at a brisk rate, but there is no tendency for the glider to “drop” such as when the flaps are moved between notches in other gliders. This DuckHawk is fitted with a prototype automatic flap control system but it was not used on this flight. I returned to the field put the flaps down and opened the spoilers to land just like you do in other gliders and the nice thing was to put the gear down I just moved the gated switch and out came the gear. Everything went easily on landing and the floating piston oleo shock is wonderful as there is no bounce and it does its job very nicely and the wheel brake is very effective.



One week later, I took the DuckHawk up for another flight on a day when the ridge was working and had the opportunity to experience this glider's excellent cross country capability. Since there were thermals present as well, I had more time to fly the plane and it was a good opportunity to do some stalls and get a feel for the plane throughout more of its envelope. The stalls were benign and had very little tendency to drop a wing. The DuckHawk is much like a chameleon in the way it can be thermalled. For instance, at 50 knots it requires very little control in maneuvering in a thermal and climbs very well with little effort. However, unlike other sailplanes, this glider really does not seem to have a narrow and sensitive “drag bucket” and as a result, it can be thermalled even down to 40 knots without a significant sink rate penalty. It was quite interesting that the pilot is given quite the latitude in how one wants to go about thermalling, which bodes well for different conditions and pilot styles. Prior to the flight, Bill Thar also told me that I should consider bringing the glider up to its 160 knots maneuvering speed, which I did after thermalling it for a while. I dived away and got up to around 155 knots and then pulled up, heading like a rocket toward the stratosphere. That pull-up was such a rush that I decided I just had to do it again going the other way! One must also consider that this was even done under convective conditions in the vicinity of a ridge, not in smooth air. However, the DuckHawk was absolutely solid and it felt absolutely safe bringing it to a speed that is over the VNE of most other sailplanes around. The plane was flown dry with a light total flying weight around 620 LBS and when I got onto the ridge, I immediately noticed that even for its light weight it did not get particularly kicked around by the dynamic air. Unlike my trusty metal steed (1-26), the DuckHawk seemed to “plow” through the air and handled beautifully on the ridge. The ridge transitions were quite easy and I flew over 400 km with an average speed of 105 mph on the ridge, without doing any turns other than doing some more thermalling practice at the end of “our” mountain. The glider was flown with the prototype automatic/manual flap control system and I think that this will be an exciting system for the future of the plane as the automatic mode smoothly adjusts the flaps throughout their range and gives you the optimum flap setting all of the time. The fast roll rate is conducive to rolling in and out very quickly with little adverse yaw. As far as all of the other features of the plane you can check them out on the manufacturer’s website. It is quite a testament to the design of the glider that someone with as little high performance glider time as myself would be able to transition so easily to a world-class racing machine. Windward Performance's DuckHawk was an absolute delight to fly and it would be an honor to fly it again.

Having been involved in the certification of many experimental aircraft as a DAR and personally involved in the helping of the certification of the Duckhawk the certification should have no bearing on the Airworthiness of an aircraft or in the decision to buy one. The Duckhawk is certified Experimental, Air racing and comes with limitations as do all experimental aircraft including homebuilts. There are many sailplanes that are imported from Europe that have no US Standard Airworthiness Certificate and are thus certified under the Experimental Air Racing Category. Windward has develop a relationship with the local FSDO and after much education they have become comfortable with the issuance of the airworthiness certificate, and that was not easy. This ability to build and certify with out getting a Type Certificate and Production certificate enables Windward to produce the Duck Hawk, otherwise it would be nearly impossible unless money and years waiting on the FAA were not a problem but for a small cutting edge company a standard airworthiness certification is not an option. As far as the structural testing of the Duck Hawk is concerned it is beyond a doubt that it can stand the test of time. But like any company, if you do not have deep pockets and people do not step up to support a company like windward you may find the only reference to it in Wikipedia. Test fly one and then make a decision, it sounds like Danial has thanks to a believer like Bill Thar. In order to change the future you have to start with the youth.

Having been involved in the certification of many experimental aircraft as a DAR and personally involved in the helping of the certification of the Duckhawk the certification should have no bearing on the Airworthiness of an aircraft or in the decision to buy one.


As a good Libertarian I heartily agree about what should be, and what the FAA has done to aircraft development is a crime.

The question I had is more about the legalities in the sadly over regulated world in which we operate, and I as a potential buyer would have to live in. You need a certificate of airworthiness, and the FAA needs to see mountains of paperwork before issuing one of those, experimental or not. You can't just nail 2 4x8s to a broom, call the FAA and ask for an experimental airworthiness certificate.

UH is interesting on the manuals required. Since they ask for detailed engineering studies for things like attaching a 30 year old tow hook to a 40 year old Cessna, and since they want detailed construction inspections of amateur built aircraft, I would have imagined some process goes in to getting exhibition and air racing certificates. I have read through enough of the FAA documents on this matter to know that they are giving experimental certificates to our imported gliders on the basis that these things are already certified in their countries. If you show up with 2 4 x 8s nailed to a broom, and a full list of "manufacturer" placards and flight manuals -- launch from barn roof no more than 10 feet AGL -- you get an experimental and air racing certificate? The FAA is incredibly picky these days about repair stations; they really don't care what a "manufacturer" looks like?

If their local FSDO is happy, does that mean mine is automatically happy? If there is a crash, do all the certificates disappear? If I buy one of these things what procedure do I have to go through to actually fly it?

These are just honest questions. I suppose the majority of pilots don't know anything about these issues -- we know how standard and experimental imported work, but not what happens if you drive out to the FSDO with something that, as far as they know, your buddies put together in their garage

John Cochrane

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:23:41 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Having fun in the DuckHawk 15m sailplane

By: Daniel Sazhin



In early September, I had a fantastic day of flying at Blairstown Airport, the culmination of which was having the opportunity to fly Windward Performance's new DuckHawk. I had just flown the club Grob Twin Astir with my brother, promptly falling out and not exactly having one of my best landings in it. It seems that Bill Thar did not see it and upon greeting him, he offered me to fly the DuckHawk! I was flabbergasted and immediately agreed. The glider was already assembled, so Bill promptly introduced me to the cockpit and gave the pre-flight briefing. We pushed the glider out to the line, which was easy because at its 440 LBS empty weight it is just like pushing my club's 1-26E around!



While I have not flown any high performance single-place gliders before, my many years of flying the Condor Soaring Simulator have allowed me to be familiar with most of the composite sailplanes in the field. I did not feel nervous about being able to control the plane and I was excited to try it out. The first takeoff was very easy and the DuckHawk had great control authority and responsiveness. There was no need for any of the takeoff tricks found on some other sailplanes such as negative flap settings prior to takeoff or open spoilers for increased aileron effectiveness. The visibility was great and it was easy to stay behind the tow plane because the DuckHawk didn’t get thrown around in the turbulence. Unfortunately, upon releasing I was unable to find much lift except for one light thermal which amounted to zero-sink for a while. Pulling into that thermal, it was quite a fantastic sensation bringing the flaps to 10-15 degrees and feeling the glider “grip” the air. The DuckHawk was able to slow down to a tad over 40 knots and provides the pilot with a lot of feedback from the air. What was definitely noticeable was that the glider does everything you want it to. There is no feeling of “fighting the glider” like in some other gliders I had flown. The DuckHawk handled great at the low speed end and the controls were not twitchy, but yet very responsive. I liked the fact that there is no elevator trim; instead wherever one places the stick, it stays in that position. The electric flaps are easily controlled in manual mode using a switch on the stick. The flaps move at a brisk rate, but there is no tendency for the glider to “drop” such as when the flaps are moved between notches in other gliders. This DuckHawk is fitted with a prototype automatic flap control system but it was not used on this flight. I returned to the field put the flaps down and opened the spoilers to land just like you do in other gliders and the nice thing was to put the gear down I just moved the gated switch and out came the gear. Everything went easily on landing and the floating piston oleo shock is wonderful as there is no bounce and it does its job very nicely and the wheel brake is very effective.



One week later, I took the DuckHawk up for another flight on a day when the ridge was working and had the opportunity to experience this glider's excellent cross country capability. Since there were thermals present as well, I had more time to fly the plane and it was a good opportunity to do some stalls and get a feel for the plane throughout more of its envelope. The stalls were benign and had very little tendency to drop a wing. The DuckHawk is much like a chameleon in the way it can be thermalled. For instance, at 50 knots it requires very little control in maneuvering in a thermal and climbs very well with little effort. However, unlike other sailplanes, this glider really does not seem to have a narrow and sensitive “drag bucket” and as a result, it can be thermalled even down to 40 knots without a significant sink rate penalty. It was quite interesting that the pilot is given quite the latitude in how one wants to go about thermalling, which bodes well for different conditions and pilot styles. Prior to the flight, Bill Thar also told me that I should consider bringing the glider up to its 160 knots maneuvering speed, which I did after thermalling it for a while. I dived away and got up to around 155 knots and then pulled up, heading like a rocket toward the stratosphere. That pull-up was such a rush that I decided I just had to do it again going the other way! One must also consider that this was even done under convective conditions in the vicinity of a ridge, not in smooth air. However, the DuckHawk was absolutely solid and it felt absolutely safe bringing it to a speed that is over the VNE of most other sailplanes around. The plane was flown dry with a light total flying weight around 620 LBS and when I got onto the ridge, I immediately noticed that even for its light weight it did not get particularly kicked around by the dynamic air. Unlike my trusty metal steed (1-26), the DuckHawk seemed to “plow” through the air and handled beautifully on the ridge. The ridge transitions were quite easy and I flew over 400 km with an average speed of 105 mph on the ridge, without doing any turns other than doing some more thermalling practice at the end of “our” mountain. The glider was flown with the prototype automatic/manual flap control system and I think that this will be an exciting system for the future of the plane as the automatic mode smoothly adjusts the flaps throughout their range and gives you the optimum flap setting all of the time. The fast roll rate is conducive to rolling in and out very quickly with little adverse yaw. As far as all of the other features of the plane you can check them out on the manufacturer’s website. It is quite a testament to the design of the glider that someone with as little high performance glider time as myself would be able to transition so easily to a world-class racing machine. Windward Performance's DuckHawk was an absolute delight to fly and it would be an honor to fly it again.

The Duckhawk is issued a Experimental Air racing Airworthiness certificate at the time of completion. It is registered to Windward Performance, Windward is the builder, Windward makes all the arrangements with the FAA for certification, all you do is pick it up with your trailer. Windward sells the Duckhawk to you by way of a bill of sale and a change of registration, done. As far as who can maintain the Duckhawk, give it its annual, this can be done by any A+P, it need not be an IA. Windward is a manufacture and the Duckhawk is not built in a Barn, if you have any knowledge of composite construction and have been to the business and seen the product you will understand that it is not made of 2x4's and plywood. As far as what you imagine I can not say but in all my years working with the FAA in certification and as a DAR issuing experimental certificates I feel privileged to help in the Duckhawks program and advance American Sailplanes. Educate yourself and if you crash it is your own fault, it is not the fault of the sailplane. The advancement of general aviation and soaring can be found in the barns, garages, and small hangers and business, the history of soaring has its own roots in experimental aircraft, the BG12, HP18, Falcons, and others built by pilots and engineers who wanted a better sailplane and took it upon them selves to do it and help other believe that they to can soar from to an aircraft built in there garage. The reason the Duckhawk is here is only because someone never gave up on a dream, and I will tell you from experience he will never give up, it is people like this that make America what it is.

On Thursday, October 31, 2013 6:24:43 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:23:41 PM UTC-7, wrote: Having fun in the DuckHawk 15m sailplane By: Daniel Sazhin In early September, I had a fantastic day of flying at Blairstown Airport, the culmination of which was having the opportunity to fly Windward Performance's new DuckHawk. I had just flown the club Grob Twin Astir with my brother, promptly falling out and not exactly having one of my best landings in it. It seems that Bill Thar did not see it and upon greeting him, he offered me to fly the DuckHawk! I was flabbergasted and immediately agreed. The glider was already assembled, so Bill promptly introduced me to the cockpit and gave the pre-flight briefing. We pushed the glider out to the line, which was easy because at its 440 LBS empty weight it is just like pushing my club's 1-26E around! While I have not flown any high performance single-place gliders before, my many years of flying the Condor Soaring Simulator have allowed me to be familiar with most of the composite sailplanes in the field. I did not feel nervous about being able to control the plane and I was excited to try it out. The first takeoff was very easy and the DuckHawk had great control authority and responsiveness. There was no need for any of the takeoff tricks found on some other sailplanes such as negative flap settings prior to takeoff or open spoilers for increased aileron effectiveness. The visibility was great and it was easy to stay behind the tow plane because the DuckHawk didn’t get thrown around in the turbulence. Unfortunately, upon releasing I was unable to find much lift except for one light thermal which amounted to zero-sink for a while. Pulling into that thermal, it was quite a fantastic sensation bringing the flaps to 10-15 degrees and feeling the glider “grip” the air. The DuckHawk was able to slow down to a tad over 40 knots and provides the pilot with a lot of feedback from the air. What was definitely noticeable was that the glider does everything you want it to. There is no feeling of “fighting the glider” like in some other gliders I had flown. The DuckHawk handled great at the low speed end and the controls were not twitchy, but yet very responsive. I liked the fact that there is no elevator trim; instead wherever one places the stick, it stays in that position. The electric flaps are easily controlled in manual mode using a switch on the stick. The flaps move at a brisk rate, but there is no tendency for the glider to “drop” such as when the flaps are moved between notches in other gliders. This DuckHawk is fitted with a prototype automatic flap control system but it was not used on this flight. I returned to the field put the flaps down and opened the spoilers to land just like you do in other gliders and the nice thing was to put the gear down I just moved the gated switch and out came the gear. Everything went easily on landing and the floating piston oleo shock is wonderful as there is no bounce and it does its job very nicely and the wheel brake is very effective. One week later, I took the DuckHawk up for another flight on a day when the ridge was working and had the opportunity to experience this glider's excellent cross country capability. Since there were thermals present as well, I had more time to fly the plane and it was a good opportunity to do some stalls and get a feel for the plane throughout more of its envelope. The stalls were benign and had very little tendency to drop a wing. The DuckHawk is much like a chameleon in the way it can be thermalled. For instance, at 50 knots it requires very little control in maneuvering in a thermal and climbs very well with little effort. However, unlike other sailplanes, this glider really does not seem to have a narrow and sensitive “drag bucket” and as a result, it can be thermalled even down to 40 knots without a significant sink rate penalty. It was quite interesting that the pilot is given quite the latitude in how one wants to go about thermalling, which bodes well for different conditions and pilot styles. Prior to the flight, Bill Thar also told me that I should consider bringing the glider up to its 160 knots maneuvering speed, which I did after thermalling it for a while. I dived away and got up to around 155 knots and then pulled up, heading like a rocket toward the stratosphere. That pull-up was such a rush that I decided I just had to do it again going the other way! One must also consider that this was even done under convective conditions in the vicinity of a ridge, not in smooth air. However, the DuckHawk was absolutely solid and it felt absolutely safe bringing it to a speed that is over the VNE of most other sailplanes around. The plane was flown dry with a light total flying weight around 620 LBS and when I got onto the ridge, I immediately noticed that even for its light weight it did not get particularly kicked around by the dynamic air. Unlike my trusty metal steed (1-26), the DuckHawk seemed to “plow” through the air and handled beautifully on the ridge. The ridge transitions were quite easy and I flew over 400 km with an average speed of 105 mph on the ridge, without doing any turns other than doing some more thermalling practice at the end of “our” mountain. The glider was flown with the prototype automatic/manual flap control system and I think that this will be an exciting system for the future of the plane as the automatic mode smoothly adjusts the flaps throughout their range and gives you the optimum flap setting all of the time. The fast roll rate is conducive to rolling in and out very quickly with little adverse yaw. As far as all of the other features of the plane you can check them out on the manufacturer’s website. It is quite a testament to the design of the glider that someone with as little high performance glider time as myself would be able to transition so easily to a world-class racing machine. Windward Performance's DuckHawk was an absolute delight to fly and it would be an honor to fly it again. The Duckhawk is issued a Experimental Air racing Airworthiness certificate at the time of completion. It is registered to Windward Performance, Windward is the builder, Windward makes all the arrangements with the FAA for certification, all you do is pick it up with your trailer. Windward sells the Duckhawk to you by way of a bill of sale and a change of registration, done. As far as who can maintain the Duckhawk, give it its annual, this can be done by any A+P, it need not be an IA. Windward is a manufacture and the Duckhawk is not built in a Barn, if you have any knowledge of composite construction and have been to the business and seen the product you will understand that it is not made of 2x4's and plywood. As far as what you imagine I can not say but in all my years working with the FAA in certification and as a DAR issuing experimental certificates I feel privileged to help in the Duckhawks program and advance American Sailplanes. Educate yourself and if you crash it is your own fault, it is not the fault of the sailplane. The advancement of general aviation and soaring can be found in the barns, garages, and small hangers and business, the history of soaring has its own roots in experimental aircraft, the BG12, HP18, Falcons, and others built by pilots and engineers who wanted a better sailplane and took it upon them selves to do it and help other believe that they to can soar from to an aircraft built in there garage. The reason the Duckhawk is here is only because someone never gave up on a dream, and I will tell you from experience he will never give up, it is people like this that make America what it is.

What you have stated differs from what they apparently say on their website..
It sounds like they are doing exactly what we would expect of them.
That is a good thing and I'm glad to hear it. I think they should maybe tune up the info on their site.
UH

That all makes perfect sense, and would be just how I would expect -- buy glider, it comes with airworthiness certificate, the manufacturer has dealt with the FAA. My curiosity was piqued by the statement on their website that it is delivered without airworthiness and wondering what it would take for me to drive up to the FSDO, new glider in tow and ask for an airworthiness certificate.

John Cochrane

On 10/31/2013 5:20 PM, wrote:
As a good Libertarian I heartily agree about what should be, and what the FAA has done to aircraft development is a crime.

The question I had is more about the legalities in the sadly over regulated world in which we operate

Thanks for the morning chuckle BB, I'll have to remember this post next
time a SSA racing rules flame war comes up on RAS!

Cheers,
Luke

I would absulutely LOVE to have one. There's just that thing about the
price. Sure, it's somewhat less expensive than the European competition,
but it's still quite a lot. Not saying it's not worth it.

Kudos to the designers and builders!

Lol. Never thought of it that way.... Maybe that's a good point?

On Friday, 1 November 2013 09:18:32 UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
I would absulutely LOVE to have one. There's just that thing about the

price. Sure, it's somewhat less expensive than the European competition,

but it's still quite a lot. Not saying it's not worth it.



Kudos to the designers and builders!

Bit off topic here but is it less expensive then European gliders? Anyone know current cost of Ventus 2 or ASG 29 (in 15 meter config) or other 15 meter gliders? We all understand the fluctuations in the euro but am curious.

Ron Gleason

The Duckhawk is radical in some ways, not always a bad thing, not always
good.
As someone from outside the USA I could not care less whether it is from
there, Europe or Africa. If it is a better aircraft then I am interested,
IF certified.
I hope to see one in Poland this year, pity we couldn't see it in Uvalde.
An 18M version will sell more overseas than 15M. From what I have seen
sales do not seem to be big on the builders agenda?
Tom

PS: unlike some views, mine is that it came second in it's first comp, a
Canadian in an ASG29 won! (Regardless of the hype)



At 14:11 02 November 2013, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Friday, 1 November 2013 09:18:32 UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
I would absulutely LOVE to have one. There's just that thing about the


price. Sure, it's somewhat less expensive than the European
competition,


but it's still quite a lot. Not saying it's not worth it.



Kudos to the designers and builders!

Bit off topic here but is it less expensive then European gliders?
Anyone
know current cost of Ventus 2 or ASG 29 (in 15 meter config) or other 15
meter gliders? We all understand the fluctuations in the euro but am
curious.

Ron Gleason