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Winter in the Northern Hemisphere is always a time for most air sports to go into 'hibernation' and thus shifting our focus to the areas South of the Equator where activity is at its peak. The weather is good - a day out in the countryside with a hang glider or a paraglider is an all family affair. Unfortunately the larger landmass is in the North and the areas where we can really fly is fairly limited. Add to this is the interest factor. Like we have cricketing countries or we have soccer countries, we also have countries where air sports is a tradition. But things are fast changing - air sports are now becoming universal and we are indeed pleased to see this trend. Today we have a problem in getting stories from events that are being held 'down under' but we can see the change and hope that the trend progresses rapidly so that we can talk in terms of a round-the-year activities in all air sports. The February issue is thus limited to just four stories, a rather unusual situation, but we hope to rebuild our tempo from March onwards to get back to our five or more major stories per issue. But what is certainly of interest the proliferation of local events and regional championships. Some have the official seal of approval of the FAI, while others have planned their events without getting formal approval, but interestingly all of them follow the rules and regulations of FAI and are been to be reported upon in aviation sports magazines including Air Sports International. We are also happy to note that equipment manufactures are now becoming conscious of the need to use the media to reach out to hitherto unknown markets. There are regular requests being received for coverage of events and new equipment releases. The leader in this are companies dealing with cyber flying software. They are keen to get their software reviewed and thus not only using the pages of publications like ours to make known their products but also create an interest in the latest air sport - Cyber Flying. In the forthcoming issues we shall be adding a section to Air Sports International to carry such reviews which will be done by experts is the field and we hope to be able to present an unbiased view of their products. I would also like to take this opportunity of playing on record my personnel deep appreciation for the assistance provided to me by the Editorial team (Richard Lockhart, Sub-Editor) of Australia Gliding Sky Sailor for having given us their whole hearted support to reproduce some of the stories already carried by them. We thus get an opportunity of carrying the message further and to a wider cross-section. Although this month's issue does not carry any such story from Australian Gliding Sky Sailor but never the less we look at the cooperation for the future. We would like to back this goodwill and use it judiciously. All features so reproduced will invariably be carrying the due acknowledgement. These are interesting stories that we would like our readers to read and not miss out because they are 'far away' from the 'home' country. That brings me to my final point. No story is either too insignificant or too small for us to carry. We want to report all the events where ever they occur or when ever they occur. So do keep writing. Nothing like sharing your joy of flying experiences with others by writing about them.
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