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The month of March is just the beginning of the air sports season in the Northern Hemisphere. It is certainly not the best time of the year to go chasing after thermals or doing some aeromodelling or some flying or even parachuting. Right till March, winter is still lingering in the tropical regions and is still quite severe up North. All this makes the task of an Editor of an air sports magazine very difficult. No activity means nothing to report !
We have, however, managed to get together a good mix of articles in this issue, which deal with some air sport activity in the Southern hemisphere and on various issues concerning air sports. We have a brief report on the Paragliding World Cup held in Bright, Australia. This is a part of the 1998 series. In this issue we also feature a report on the technical issues in Solar Powered Flight. This is a follow up of the interview we carried in the Feb issue with FAI First Vice President Alvaro de Orleans-Bourbon. We also carry a report written in 1913 by Prince Roland Bonaparte, the first President of FAI, on the Freedom of Flying, or the lack of it, as enjoyed by amateur pilots. It is amazing how certain points raised by him then are still so relevant. This report is reproduced in its original copy in French. We have a full fledged guide on "How to build your Own Aircraft", written by Anton Maneschijn from South Africa. A step by step account of all the stages that one needs to go through while building an aircraft at home. We have also reproduced an excellent piece on Aerobatics from the magazine of the New Zealand Aerobatics Club by Martyn Gosling. He has titled the article - The Poison Pawn - as he compares aerobatics to chess - both being games of skill and strategy. He feels that in aerobatics the poison pawn is the snap roll on the top of a loop. In this issue we have a fairly large number of items in Air Waves, Letters to the Editor and News in Brief. All this is a good sign as it indicates our growing popularity amongst our readers and recognition by those who wish to use our pages for their communication. We have received a fair number of responses from our readers regarding some technical issues. We wish to inform all our readers that we will continuously endeavour to use the latest in technology that is available for the Internet. We will constantly upgrade our page layouts. Perhaps some of you are not able to read some of our pages. May I request all our readers to keep upgrading their browsers so that they are able to enjoy the latest in page designing and all the baubles we wish to offer you. However, we do not wish to rush in. We will remain just that much close to the cutting edge and yet not get left behind, so that we carry all our readers along. At the same time we do wish to be found wanting by those technical experts who are constantly working for our benefit and are bringing in newer technologies and innovations for Internet publishing. Happy reading !
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