Magazine Submissions

SSA has several restrictions which are used as guidelines for all submitted magazine material. No “party line” is enforced – reasonable people may disagree on the best, safest, or most effective way to teach or accomplish something. Also, SSA does not try to suppress one well-reasoned view in favor of another. But all views, particularly those that are of a controversial nature, should be well supported with facts. Articles can be as short as 500 and as long as 3000 words. In general, succinct is better. We edit all submissions, and frequently work with an author to refine an article prior to its publication. We assume that your article is original and not previously published. Please make it clear if this is not so. We acknowledge all submissions but generally make no advanced promises about publication. Space is limited so some good contributions must go unpublished.

Layout, production, proofing, printing and mailing take time. The last day on which material can be changed is typically 45 days before the first day of the issue month. Thus, the deadline for the October issue would be August 15th.

Milestone entries are welcomed for soaring pilots who have soloed, received their private pilot rating, added-on the glider rating to a current power rating, and any additional ratings added to a current glider certificate. The Soaring staff makes every effort to run all Milestones entries in as timely a manner as possible. The very soonest to expect a Milestones entry to appear is 90 days after submission. Much longer delays can be expected after the end of the soaring season.

Great photos of soaring subjects will be considered for the front cover. The process utilized for good soaring photographs could itself be the subject of an article. Briefly, you need a camera with a quality lens that reliably makes good exposures. Good air-to-air photos have great appeal, but are not easy to take. Photos are better if shot against an interesting background, which often complicates things. You will rarely get acceptable results if you try to shoot through a canopy. Digital cameras have almost completely replaced the use of film for Soaring photography. As a rule of thumb, a photo printed in a magazine should have at least 300 dots per inch. Thus, a 1280×960 digital image can be printed no larger than about 4″x3″, and may not look sharp at that size. (See Photo Guidelines below for more details.) Generally, the larger the file, the better the chances of the image being used. For example, if you’re shooting with an 8 Megapixel camera, be certain that the image resolution setting that is being used results in a file almost that size. Using a lower resolution may save some memory space, but the quality of the image is lessened.