Putting science to work for archers

When the Galileo Deep Space Probe still was just a good idea, Bernie Windauer designed structures to test its instruments, fuel tank and heat exchanger.

He designed test fixtures for the Tomahawk cruise missile and top-secret U.S. military Skunk Works surveillance.

His resume lists his work designing and building massive coal- and earth-moving equipment, rinser/dryer prototypes for microchip processor manufacturers, emission ducting for an aluminum smelter and rifle scopes now used by U.S. military snipers.

Now the Kalispell man's latest project may help avid archers bag their next bull elk.

Windauer is developing software for an advanced hand-held laser range finder that will determine the aerodynamic drag on any arrow a marksman may launch.

He's talking with companies which could produce the range finder to plug his new software into. A few different companies are showing interest in the project, but he hasn't sealed a deal yet.

He and his partners in this project, nationally known ballistic systems engineers Ted Almgren and Bill McDonald of Almgren Associates Inc. in Darby, are conducting archery tests now.

From those will come the range finder that can be pre-programmed with the arrow shaft's length, diameter, type of fletching, shaft composition and distance to a target so an archer can determine trajectory for the shot. Measurements of air density will be factored in, making it possible to determine an arrow's efficiency.

Last week, the testing got under way in earnest.

For some time, Windauer had been searching the Flathead Valley for a suitable testing facility. Because his electronics are temperature-sensitive, he needed an indoor range. One by one, the natural choices for building size and openness from Majestic Valley Arena on down the line did not pan out.

Finally, he connected with Scott Hollinger. The Bigfork real estate agent recently bought the former Flathead Forest Service office in south Kalispell and is looking for tenants for the 18,000 square feet on two expansive floors. As carpet is being torn up and old fixtures removed, the building is wide open and begging for some use.

It turned out to be perfect for Windauer's test range.

So he designed the test fixtures and set up shop on the second floor of Hollinger's building.

Last week he launched arrow after target-point-fitted arrow from a stationary 100-pound compound bow. Each one thudded into a solid-foam field target 150 feet away at the opposite end of his test range.

At both ends, a gun chronograph's bright light and optical sensors measured each arrow's start and stop velocities as it passed through the triangular frame.

To give the arrow's carbon fibers - or wood grain or aluminum, depending on the shaft being launched - time to stop wobbling and buckling in the middle before its starting velocity was clocked, Windauer set up the first chronograph 15 feet away from the compound bow. The second chronograph was set up just in front of the target.

One early test last week clocked a start speed of 274 feet per second and a stop speed of 249 feet per second. By comparing the two velocities, Windauer, Almgren and McDonald will be able to figure aerodynamic drag.

It's a partnership, and an idea, launched from a rifle scope that Windauer worked to refine for its German manufacturer.

He first linked up with the German company, Schmidt and Bender, on a 1996 trip. Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont had asked Windauer to check into some SWAT gear while overseas, and through a series of conversations the company asked Windauer to help them improve a locking scope for rifles.

That scope went into production, and eventually was picked up by the U.S. Amy and Marines for the sniper scopes on M-16s.

Windauer joined with Almgren and McDonald in 2002 when he needed expert input on bullet trajectory for a fully automatic rifle scope design. Their partnership resulted in a scope that counteracts wind speed, air density and the coriolis effect from the earth's rotation, sets a trajectory, then double-checks itself before confirming a target.

A version of that software will be used in the upcoming archery package.

During Desert Storm he had an epiphany as his mind worked on a problem in church one Sunday morning that apparently helped change the course of the battle.

Enemy Scud missiles had been hitting their targets as U.S. Patriot missiles were too slow to detect and intercept them, primarily because the military could not predict where the Scuds would be launched. Satellite technology already was reading the spectra of various substances from far over the earth's surface.

Use that to detect off-gassing as a missile launcher was being fueled, Windauer figured - in this case often under bridges or inside buildings - and launch points could be targeted. He forwarded his idea to the Pentagon and, he said, within days Patriots started destroying Scuds.

He still keeps in his files a February 1991 letter from Air Force Lt. Gen. John Conaway thanking him for his contribution.

Although college-educated as a civil engineer, Windauer has picked up a healthy dose of mechanical engineering expertise through these and other projects.

He started out as a mechanical design engineer for Holland Loader Co. in Billings, moved to San Diego to work with General Dynamics' aeronautics and space division and later worked as a senior civil engineer on large commercial and residential projects in San Diego County.

Back in the Flathead, he did prototype design for Semitool and later Verteq, before becoming Flathead County's assistant road superintendent. He took a job with Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. as a project civil and mechanical engineer.

Today he does independent civil and mechanical engineering contract work through his own Custom Systems business.

Through his work, Windauer hopes to attract high-tech, clean manufacturing to the Flathead Valley that creates small products easily shipped from this off-the-beaten path region.

He figures the U.S. military would be interested in producing Almgren Associates' advanced rifle scope in such a setting, keeping its production technology out of the hands of China's military-run manufacturing.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com