On Friday, July 6, 2012 7:08:18 PM UTC-7, Tim Taylor wrote:
On Jul 6, 1:42*pm, wrote:
On Thursday, July 5, 2012 9:35:20 PM UTC-7, Tim Taylor wrote:
Congratulations to Gary Ittner and Phil Gaisford on winning the US 18M
and Standard Class Nationals.

Scores are still preliminary. Very close contest for both classes.
Peter Deane was only 2 points behind Phil (about one turn in a thermal
over the contest). *Chip Garner was only 19 points behind Gary flying
the 15M DuckHawk. He had an impressive last day win at over 85 mph and
nearly 4 mph faster than anyone else.

So how good is the Duck Hawk? It must be as good as a ASG-29-18, could this be? Nothing could be better than a German built sailplane, it must be a fluke. But what if it is? American made? Windward should lend the US team a Duckhawk, but nothing can be better than a ASG-29-18 right? Way to go Chip.

John,

I'm not sure how you come to any of your conclusions. One day or one
contest does not show a performance difference between gliders. Also
the world is far from Germancentric on gliders today. Polish and Sourh
African glider are considered excellent racers today. The US team has
been offered the DuckHawk. As a pilot that has worked most of your
flying career to make the team would you take an unproven glider to
the World's or would you take the glider you have flown for the last
few years and know inside out?

The DuckHawk appears to be a very good glider. It will be fun to see
it fly at a strong site such as Uvalde or Hobbs against the current
15M gliders. It showed it can fly in weak conditions at Mifflin this
year. Pilot feedback on the handling and ride after a long day will
be interesting.

I have not seen anyone putting the glider down, it will just take
time for information and experience to prove quality of the glider.

Thanks Tim,
Your' observation are spot on and not having much experience with the process of entering a sailplane or why they fly the sailplanes they fly in international compition your comment makes sense. I believe that the Duckhawk will continue to prove itself as time goes on and the support the US soaring community shows for an American made sailplne would only help a company contine in creating and improving the product. What needs to happen is that the US team should at least evaluate the performance by flying the Duck Hawk. If a pilot takes an unproven and fresh out of the box sailplane and wins the 15 meter (I know a Guest pilot took first over all), flew well in the open class nationals, and places second in the 18 meter National, it should at least be taken seriously, to say that it needs more time to evaluate so be it, but if the US team wants to win I would think that if there was sailplane out there that gave them an advantage they would at least take a very hard look at it.

John