Megan updated us on the sales of the Design Guide: as of 12/31/99 918 Guides had been sold; 960 of the first printing remain in AIAA stock (sales were 243 as of 12/31/98, so 717 were sold in 1999). If sales continue at this brisk pace, we will need a second printing well before the publication of the fifth Edition is published during the 100th anniversary of powered flight in 2003, as presently planned.

Janice indicated that no reviews of the Design Guide had been published to date; she did not know when (or if) this might happen. With regard to possible sales of the Guide (and other AIAA books) at local section meetings or at traveling "road shows", she indicated that she had initiated a proposal concerning these (and involving the addition of a new staff member to who would be necessary to implement the activities) which was now being considered at AIAA, and she would not want to compromise the acceptance of that proposal by our mentioning it outside of the committee.

There was a brief discussion of the cover of the 4th Edition, a follow-on to that at Albuquerque. Rodger indicated that it would be possible to have a new cover design for the next reprinting of the 4th Edition, since none of the original covers were left over from the first printing. The possible nature of the redesign was briefly discussed and examples of striking new covers designed by a staff specialist were shown to us. Janice said the staff specialist should begin working on our new cover right away.

Rodger identified the individual at AIAA who is involved in investigating electronic publishing, whom he had mentioned at Albuquerque, as Doug Greevy. Rodger indicated that AIAA is actively exploring this field at the present time, and that they were working with a company which had put as many as 10 selected AIAA books into PDF format, and that they had been subsequently been put on the AIAA web site so that the entire contents of the books could be browsed by anyone interested. This seems to have been responsible for a dramatic increase in sales of at least some of the books; a 94% sales increase was mentioned for the book "Augustine's Laws". However, he indicated that it was felt that for some books (the Design Guide being one such) this availability could significantly reduce potential sales; for example, an individual only looking for a few particular formulas might be satisfied to obtain them by browsing the book on the web site and never consider purchase.

We discussed an index for the 5th Edition; Rodger commented that maybe we don't need one, perhaps the Chapter headings/contents would suffice. We agreed to pick a few pages and decide what index entries for them would be appropriate. This could form a basis for deciding on whether an index is really useful, estimating how many pages one would occupy, and the level of detail that would be appropriate.

Megan indicated that she would soon be able to obtain proof pages of the 4th Edition, larger than the published ones, like those we reviewed prior to publishing. After some discussion, we concluded that it might be better to use those to keep our records of needed corrections/changes (although Dorothea will probably continue to keep her list of the corrections/suggested changes; see below); they could then go directly to the compositor with less chance of misinterpretation of our intent when preparing for reprinting, or publishing the 5th Edition.

Dorothea distributed copies of the short section on composites that she prepared for inclusion in the 5th Edition and we discussed it briefly. It was suggested that some data on typical modulii would be useful and she agreed to include some (about 1/3 page additional) George agreed to also review the proposed addition; he asked about adding safety factors which should be used for the composites and Dorothea indicated that traditional methods for calculating margins of safety should prevail, such as using a 1.5 factor for ultimate loads. Dorothea also distributed copies of the list she is keeping of all corrections and suggested additions for the 5th Edition. She asked that all review this list and provide her with any necessary corrections; this should be done by March 1 so she can update the list before our next meeting at SDM in Atlanta. The Excel spread sheet list will be broken into two lists prior to our next meeting, one for 4th Edition revisions and one for 5th Edition changes.

George had not been able to review the 4th Edition materials on Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing, with respect to the latest ASME Standard; he still intends to do this, hopefully by the next meeting.

George distributed copies of the introduction to SI units that he prepared for inclusion in the introduction to the 5th Edition, and we discussed it briefly; George agreed to pare down the material somewhat.

Dorothea inquired about the timing of providing our corrections to be included in the reprinting of the Guide; Megan indicated that it might take around 2 weeks to incorporate them, so we should plan on providing them at least a month prior to the reprinting date.

We briefly discussed the quality of some of the figures in the 4th Edition; some were not too good, even some that had been made from new artwork. George suggested that we should pick out around 5 or so that had been in previous editions and ask Megan to scan them from the original boards to see if the quality would be better than in the 4th Edition (many of which had to be scanned from a copy of the 3rd Edition. It was suggested that we should ask Megan to tell us what line weights on original artwork would reproduce satisfactorily (some fine lines on new artwork were indistinct in the 4th Edition).

During and after the meetings, I purchased two copies of the Design Guide for presentation to the winners of the "best paper" award at each of the paper sessions we are sponsoring at SDM in April (I received the 15% "author's discount" from the AIAA members' price). The sessions are "Emerging Design Tools and Processes for Effective Product Development" chaired by Tom Healy and Dorothea Fitzsimmons on Monday morning, April 3rd and "Practical Design Applications", chaired by Mike Johnson on Monday afternoon. Your participation in judging the papers in these sessions is essential to the success of the effort and all who can are encouraged to attend and participate. The plan is to collect judges' votes after each paper and collate them as the next paper is being presented so we can present the awards at the conclusion of each of the sessions.

There was no discussion of what kind of information we might like to put on the DETC web page; we should each take an Action Item to think seriously about this and bring the suggestions to our next meeting at SDM in Atlanta in April.