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Dans l'article , Ray Lovinggood
a écrit :


Robert,

If your club had to buy a towplane all over again,
would you still buy the motorglider, or would you get
another Rallye or other 'normal' airplane?


I think it would be another motorglider. The case in some way already
happened, as during some time when the Rallye was grounded for corrosion and
the Dimona was unreliable/unavailable, the club hired another Dimona. This
is based on the assumption that most of the problems we had with the engine
are exceptionnal and would not happen with another one. One factor to be
considered is also what kind of fuel is used. The Dimona may use Avgas 100LL
as well as unleaded 95 automotive gas. The second one is recommended for
better reliablity, as the lead in the 100 LL alway causes more or less
contamination of the oil which is the same as the oil used for actuating the
variable pitch system, and we had problems probably due to that. But as we
need 100 LL for the Rallye and have only one tank, we are stuck to that as
long as the Rallye remains. The cost for splitting the tank was evaluated
and considered prohibitive regarding the expected life of the Rallye. If
some day it is replaced by another Dimona, we would be able to switch to
unleaded 95. Anyway another Rallye is probably out of question since
manufacturing of them stopped a long time ago, only old ones are available
and buying one of them is certainly buying a lot of problems. E.g. when the
Rallye was grounded for corrosion, several monthes were spent just waiting
for the answer of the manufacturer for the proper repair procedure without
which no work could be legally started.