On 29 Dec 2007, 04:02, Marc Ramsey wrote:
Ian wrote:

Over 2,500 Blaniks, 1,400 Ka-6's (all variants) and 1,100 Ka-8's were
built. I can't offhand think of (or find) any other 1,000+ runs, but
there have been some pretty big productions.

Given the current worldwide
soaring market, however, I can't see how anyone could count on producing
1000+ units of any design, unless it offers wicked high performance for
a ridiculously low price.

Agreed. I wonder how many gliders there are in service around the
world? I understand there are about 3,500 on the BGA register, but I
doubt if more than half of these will make it to EASA. There are lots
of older gliders lying around unused or semi-used, and I can't see
many owners bothering to jump through costly hoops with them.

But I digress. I'll guess (finger in the air) 2,000 gliders in the UK,
5,000 in Germany, 5,000 for the rest of Europe, 2,000 for the US,
5,000 for everywhere else. With a bit of bad addition, that's 20,000
worldwide. So a mass-produced run of 1,000 would be a 5% replacement/
augmentation of the worldwide fleet. That's a lot.

And just to make matters worse, the long lifespans of plastic gliders
mean that second-hand performance is comparatively cheap.

You need a fairly robust market (lots of people moving up to the latest
and greatest) for these hordes to materialize. When people buy fewer
new gliders (as seems to be the case in the US now), they keep their
older ones...

There are also price-performance issues. I happily fly 34:1 wood. To
move up to 40:1 glass would cost me a few (five?) thousand. For 45:1,
double it. For 50:1, double it again. For 55:1, double it again. For
60:1, double it again (GPB 80,000 for a second hand ASH-25). So to
clear room for a cheap 40:1 mass-produced glider, lots of pilots have
to make the jump up to 45+:1 ... which is expensive.

Ian