Eric Greenwell wrote:

Partially true,but it's part of the game and rigging/de-reigging is part of
the game.

It's not partially true, it's entirely true. If the "game" is a huge
pain in the butt, people won't play it.

This "concept" applies well beyond students in low/medium performance
gliders: many (probably most nowadays) pilots fly their high performance
ships so they can land at an airport if they can't stay up, so they can
get an aero retrieve instead of a ground retrieve. Pilots of big Open
class gliders especially hate to land in a field, because they are such
beasts to pack out. What you fly very much affects how you fly.

Well said. I must say that the PW-5 and the Russia both were just
inexpensive enough and just easy enough to take apart and
just with short enough wingspan that I was very comfortable
flying them X-C. One of our members even landed out in a field in
the PW-5, and it was simply a non-event.

At this stage of my experience level, I'm actually happier with
a worse L/D, lower price, and something easier to land in a narrow
field and trailer.

If I have more L/D, knowing myself, I'm just going to fly in
an area with landouts futher apart, and will still end up landing
out the exact same amount. But at a greater cost.

So for me, cheap, easily replaced 80 pound wings is a HUGE advantage,
if only mentally. With more confidence about landout selections,
I'm sure this will change. Right now I've just been surprised by the
dozens of times I thought something looked like a good landout from
3000 feet, and from 1000 feet it was a complete minefield.

Grapevines, leafless trees, gradually undulating terrain,
low roadside fences, misjudged narrowness, misjudged length,
have all been surprises for me on practice approaches to landout.
I've been chagrined at how challenging it is to truly find
a top notch landable strip in some areas...
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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA