Bert Willing wrote:

Exactly. Just a bunch of say 50,000 arrogant European pilots who think that
it's an ugly ship and who rather spend $15,000 on a second hand ship having
much more performance...


Remember a high number of pilots among these 50,000 are not owning nor buying
any glider, but just fly club gliders. And the choice of which glider a club
should buy is another thing. If a glider costs twice the price of a PW5, but
flies twice the number of hours a PW5 would fly because of better performance,
there is no hesitation on the choice. My club owned 2 old gliders (wood, metal
frame and fabric) that were donated, not sold, some years ago because the annual
number of hours they were flown were not worth the simple cost of maintaining them
airworthy.