I flew about 1000h in my ASW24.
I never had a wing down situation at the start with equally loaded ballast.
I always take off with the brakes pulled
- not to over roll the rope on asphalt
- to give more control to the ailerons
- have lass influence of propeller gusts with side wind
I cannot understand that mostly only competition pilots use this start
procedure.
If the aileron response is too sluggish in circling, then your circle speed
is too low. The ASW24 only climbs well, if you fly it at least 10km/h
above stall speed.
I modified my ASW24 before the WGC1995 in Omarama NZ to B
profiling and attached the winglets. I always flew the ASW24 about
3-5kg/m2 lighter than my friends did with Discus, DG300....
In this configuration I climbed the same, but still glided better above
150km/h.

The ASW24 cannot be flown like an LS4 - pull in the climb until it
shakes and then let go a bit. It needs more training to fly the ship
properly, to get the performance it has.
You also have to fly proper yaw. All slender fuselage designs need to
be flown within less yaw tolerance to keep the airflow along the
airframe turbulence "free".
With properly installed winglets you take the feet off the pedals and
the 24 centres yaw itself (that works for quite all winglet gliders).

Beginners must be told, that the 24 does not shake the elevator before
stalling. But the stalling behaviour within the proper CG is forgiving.
The glider is easy to fly, but needs to be flown more precisely to have
fun. The 24 has good stability and damping behaviour. You can trim
it, let go the stick "and eat a sandwich" (I would not try in a Discus).

Chris Hostettler


"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Harry wrote:

would you recommend this ship for a recently licensed pilot ??? comments
welcome!

regards
Harry

We had 2 ASW24 in my club, I had flights in both, one of them has winglets
and not
the other one. This last one was recently destroyed in an accident. I find
some
pecularities of these gliders are not really suited for beginners, but
they are
nevertheless very good and safe gliders, as proven by the fact that the
pilot
who had the accident was able to walk out of the glider and ask for help
at the next
house. What I dislike in these gliders is the lack of efficiency of the
ailerons
at low speed, probably due to their small size, especially at the
beginning of ground
roll, where they have a marked tendency to drop a wing. The fact that they
have only
a CG hook (but maybe specific to the 2 in my club) doesn't help. Beside
that this
ship is a relatively high performance ship and as a consequence, as in any
such ship,
speed increases quickly with nose down attitude, which may make speed
control difficult
for a beginner. In my club there is a sequence of glider types through
which you have
to go as your experience grows, namely ASK21, ASK23, LS4, Pegase, ASW24,
Discus, LS6.
There is not a true transition between ASW24 and Discus, they are
considered as equivalent
as far as pilot's skill and experience is concerned, however I find the
Discus is easier
to fly than the ASW24. The pilot who had the accident is the owner of a
Ventus 2a he
could not fly this day because a missing annual and some people suggested
that one of
the factor lending to the accident was his lack of training on a ship with
a handling
significantly different from his usual glider.