On Saturday, July 28, 2012 3:43:13 PM UTC-7, Ken Flaton wrote:
Error in the Chris' claim concerning excluded gliders: NOT limited to those he specified, also excluded are those produced by AMS (mine in 2001, for example). I could not get from Mr Weber how AMS could produce gliders without having generated some (licensing?) revenue for his company, but alas, he was adamant that my glider is also subject to the fees. I also agree with many of the other DG owners who have written he wonderful machine in almost every way, I love it dearly, but I wouldn't buy a pencil from any company led by anyone from DG's management team. IMO: despicable. cheers, --ken At 00:04 28 July 2012, wrote: On Friday, July 27, 2012 1:50:44 PM UTC-7, S. Murry wrote: If I lived in Europe and needed EASA-approved "flight manuals" annually, = =20 perhaps I would be willing to pay the annual fee (I guess I would have n= o =20 choice besides selling my glider). However, living in the US, I do not = =20 need this, all I need (maybe) is parts. Charge me a profitable price for= =20 the parts-fine. Charge me by the hour for consultation regarding parts o= r =20 service-fine. Charge me an annual fee for something that I probably will= =20 never use, and make it back-dated forever-not fine. I have no problem = =20 paying for services rendered, but I have a big problem with being charged= =20 for things I don't need or want. Just to add on to what Stefan said, I've owned three DG gliders over the ye= ars, including one purchased new from the (Glaser-Dirks) factory. I've bee= n quite happy with service provided by the factory, and the US distributors= , including Chris, who goes out of his way to batch orders for small parts = to reduce shipping costs. =20 Chris, quite sadly, I won't buy another legacy DG or LS glider, as the annu= al fee adds a significant amount to the ownership costs. Nor will I ever b= uy a new DG or LS glider, as I can't trust that the the company won't seek = to add additional fees in the future. Unlike Mr. Weber, I'm not a wealthy = man, and I can't take the chance that ownership of one of these gliders wil= l end up being a financial burden, or lose part of its resale value overnig= ht... Marc

Yes, there are some exceptions with gliders built by Elan, the company prior to it becoming AMS, but I was not going to get that deap into the details here. Perhaps there are even some AMS gliders included, I am not sure, but I have never been given any information as to how they selected the exceptions they did, other than these are gliders they did not build. I don't like the service agreement either and have verbilized it many times to Mr. Weber and others at DG. The bottom line is Mr. Weber has annouced his retirment early this year and that Holger Back the current manager is becoming a partner in the business. Perhaps with time Holger will be able to find a sollution that everyone can live with.
Chris