Editor comments

Abstract

Editor’s comments

The Call-for-papers for the XXX OSTIV Congress to be held 21 to 28 July 2010 in Szged, Hungary is on the next two pages.  Please plan on submitting your studies and attending the Congress so we can all learn from each other!  Also, following the Call are the expected OSTIV presentations at the Soaring Society of America Convention, 28-30 January 2010, in Little Rock, Arkansas USA.

This issue continues the publication of papers presented at the August 2008 Congress in Lüsse-Berlin.  The paper by Iscold and Pinto proposes optimization of transitory phases (accelerations and decelerations) as important for the minimization of total flight time.  And, the paper by Astori and Pajno presents numerical analyses applicable to the improvement of glider cockpit crashworthiness.

The following persons located the reviewers and supervised the reviews of the papers in this issue: Associate Editors Mark Maughmer (Iscold and Pinto paper) and Ian Oldaker (Astori and Pajno paper).  To assure accuracy of the published manuscripts, each senior author received a ‘galley-proof’ for corrections-only prior to publication.  I applaud the team that made this issue possible in a timely manner: associate editors, peer-reviewers, authors, copy-editor/layout, printers and distributors.  Thank you!

I highlighted, in the last issue, the Vanity Fair article by William Langewieche about the extraordinary story of the January 2009 Airbus emergency landing without loss of life in the Hudson River abeam New York City.  The longer treatment of the landing Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson was recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  The 11 November 2009 New York Times review calls the book ‘gripping’ and headlines ‘Cool pilot, but the plane was cooler’.  

The World Meteorological Organization Technical Note No. 203 “Weather forecasting for soaring flight”, authored by a team from the OSTIV Meteorological Panel, was published in the Spring 2009.  Copies can be obtained either from the OSTIV Secretariat or from the WMO at

www.wmo.int/e-catalog/detail_en.php?PUB_ID=535&SORT=N&q=.

Technical Soaring is online at journals.sfu.ca/ts/ and compliments the print copy; the print copy will continue for the foreseeable future.  The main benefits of being online are use of color, access to back-issues and, as members choose to terminate receiving print copies, saving OSTIV money.  You must be a paid-up-member to have complete access to ‘TS’ online and OSTIV must have your e-mail address.  So, please either mail your name and e-mail address to OSTIV c/o TU Delft, Faculty Aerospace Engineering, Kluyverweg 1, NL-2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands or e-mail the information to l.m.m.boermans@tudelft.nl.  ‘TS’ online is open to non-members for titles and abstracts.  To receive complete papers, non-members will be charged a pay-per-view/download fee.  A quick start guide to access “TS’ online is at www.ostiv.fai.org.

You are invited to send me comments on papers so a useful dialogue with the author(s) can occur in Technical Soaring.  Guidelines for comments can be found on the Technical Soaring website at

journals.sfu.ca/ts/. 

Ward Hindman

OSTIV Chief Editor and Technical Soaring Editor

hindman@sci.ccny.cuny.edu, www.ostiv.fai.org (editor), journals.sfu.ca/ts/