Jim wrote:
Thanks to all KA-6 pilots responding to my earlier question.
Wayne Paul has kindly sent links to HP websites, suggesting the HP-18 as an
affordable option for the economically-minded flyer.

I have a friend who got an HP-18 as his first ship. He had something
like 50 hours total time, and no time in a flapped ship. His first few
landings were interesting, but he did OK. It was his experienced CFIG
partner who bent the ship.

My first ship was an HP-11. I think I had about 20 hours in gliders
when I bought it, but I also had about 300-400 hours in power. The
first landing was interesting only because I took the advice of another
pilot that didn't make too much sense to me. After that, no problem.
I've sort of faded out of soaring (the commercial operation became
untenable, and I don't love soaring enough to put up with being in a
club) so if you want mine, you can have it cheap.

I particularly like one suggestion; practice steep full flaps
landings in a Cessna before first flying the HP-18.

A Cessna 150 is far more demanding to land that any glider I have ever
flown, including the HP-11 - and it's probably the least demanding of
the two-seat primary trainers.

Realistically, if you want to get into an HP now, you can. The major
advantage of going that route - it's cheap, and being all metal you can
leave it tied down outside. The major disadvantage - it doesn't fly
like most gliders. Of course if you don't have much experience flying
gliders, that's not terribly important. Thus the glider-only pilots
who had a lot of hours when they first flew one will say it's not for
the inexperienced pilot - because they found it challenging. My HP-11
actually used to be a club ship years ago, and student pilots flew it.
As long as you get a solid briefing from someone who has flown one a
while, you will probably be fine.

Michael