By your reasoning Eric the Ferrari 250 GTO (Possibly the most desirable car
in the world) is also a pile of crap.

It's unstable, unreliable, has poor brakes and is not much quicker than a
modern family saloon.

The Cirrus (with modified brakes) is no worse than any of it's
contemporaries, and is definately better than a Libelle.
The wheelbrake & crashworthiness are also the same as others of the same
era.

The "holding the stick with both hands above 75kts" is nonsense.

To get the first generation "Safety Cockpit" the OP would need to go for
an ASW24 - twice the price, twice the running costs, doesn't climb very
well and glides marginally better.

A Discus, climbs about as well as the Cirrus, glides about as well as the
24, doesn't have a "Safety Cockpit" - Costs 3 times the Cirrus

ASW27, ASG29, JS1, V2, D2 - all megabucks compared to the Cirrus

The Cirrus is *still* an excellent glider

At 02:03 18 March 2011, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 3/17/2011 4:01 PM, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Mar 17, 2:55 pm, Walt Connelly wrote:
Okay folks, your thoughts on the Standard Cirrus? Good, bad
indifferent? Flying tail, pros and cons? I am new to gliding,
Commercial Add on, 140 flights and approx 100 hours, mostly in 1-34.
Would this be a reasonable next step?

They are still an excellent glider. There are many here in NZ and from
time to time an up and coming pilot gives the modern standard class
ships a fright in one.

The bar has been raised substantially for "excellent". The Std Cirrus
is
now "OK" at best.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl