I owned N162SS for many years. It was my first privately
owned sailplane. I flew it at Minden so I had the
opportunity to fly with many other glass ships. I
also flew at a couple Air Sailing cross country and
racing camps. To tell the truth, the reason I originally
purchased the plane was because of the trailer. I
have no crew. The trailer was a Minden Fab set up
for one man rigging. I really enjoyed that plane.
It assembled very easily providing you keep the fuselage
upright while mating the wings. It was very comfortable
to fly and has super visability with a full length
canopy. If you trimmed it for 60 knots at zero degree
flaps, you could make all of your speed changes by
just changing the flap position and the plane would
be properly trimmed for that speed. The problems I
had were the stick forces for ailerons were a bit high
if you were going to fly for more than four or five
hours. The cockpit is long enough for a tall person
but it is narrow and my 5'10', 175 pound body had both
hips snug against the sides of the seat pan. The plane
saved my bacon two times when I was drawn into clouds
by super lift because it truely has a benign spiral
mode to get you down. The finish was just like new
when I sold it and there is a Speed Astir for sale
at Minden now that has a very good finish. It out
flew two different Standar Cirrus on glides on speed
above 70 knots. It seemed to be dead even with Discus
to 80 knots. I sold mine because I wanted more span.
Guy Acheson

At 04:00 25 March 2006, Btiz wrote:
where are you?? oh.. UK.. ok
in the USA,
to fly? got any glass time?
Rig? easy and as quick as any other single seat Grob?
Performance?? A kickass ride..
Price.. about $20K US with trailer, very nice entry
level airplane.
BT

'Jono Richards' wrote in
message ...

Hi All,

Anyone here whos flown a Grob Speed Astir mind telling
me what its like to fly/rig/performance/price, etc.

Still trying to find something within budget.

Thanks in advance,

JR