In article Bruce Hoult writes:

Where I'd quibble is whether people should be buying brand new ASK21's
TODAY. We looked at them several years ago but they're hellishly
expensive for what they are. It turned out that if you got a fixed
gear, fixed 18m span DG1000 with none of the optional extras then the
price was only a few thousand more than an ASK21 and can do everything
an ASK21 can do, but with 10 points more L/D.

And the DG is also expensive. I am not certain about the service
life of any of these, but if they are 3000 hours to scrap, then the
current $102,500 price (74300 Euro posted by unclhank on 10/21/10)
$34.17 per hour just for the capital of the glider, not counting
maintenance, insurance, taxes, storage.

If you can run them longer, the cost goes down, but the hourly cost
of operation is still high.

Show the potential student the ask-12 or the dg-1000, and show him
the cost of operation, along with an old glider that doesn't have the
high hourly operating costs, and a lot will figure that saving a bunch
of money is good - it can mean more flying time in the less impresive
glider.

( Written by one who did a lot of my primary training in the least
expensive Cessna 150 I could find. I got more time in the air for
the same money, too. )

Alan