On Jul 6, 7:08*pm, Tim Taylor wrote:

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.

Gotta say that I saw the DuckHawk in-flight out on the course a few
times during the Nats, and was extremely impressed! We had 6-10-knot
thermals at times in the Montague Nationals and the plane held its
own, despite the short wing (compared to the 18-meter boys). I
believe Chip was flying with a wingloading somewhere between 11 and 12
lbs/sq-ft - impressive!

Personally, I think that the thing holding the DuckHawk back is not
anything to do with its performance. Its that the plane is radical
compared to the status-quo. Sailplanes have settled in to a certain
look and style for the last 3 decades, and the DuckHawk shakes up that
whole formula. Greg Cole has an attitude and a vision that he
believes in, and its an uncompromising one. He's not trying to one-up
the German manufacturers; he's trying to do something completely
different and he's unapologetic about it.

We've seen this with cars and other consumer items through the years -
a comparable (or even superior) product languishes because of user-
acceptance issues, when the customer has strong preconceptions of what
the end-product "should be". Hopefully the DuckHawk avoids that fate;
because its a pretty cool ship with some special capabilities!

--Noel