On Aug 20, 6:01*pm, wrote:
On Monday, August 20, 2012 9:27:12 AM UTC-7, John Cochrane wrote:

Anyway, "we" aren't pricing pilots out of anything. The manufacturers have made available a wide variety of contest worthy gliders, from the PW5, to standard, 15, 18, duo, and open. You can buy fly and compete at the world level in any of these you'd like. The interesting fact is that pilots are voting with their wallets for the very best, despite astronomical cost. PW5 class died from lack of interest, and no new standard or 15 meter gliders are being produced. This is entirely by the choice of pilots, not some amorphous "we" behind the scenes.

John Cochrane

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In a replacement market where the rate of performance improvement within a fixed span envelope has slowed considerably (you can be very competitive in a 15-year old 15M glider), it's not too surprising that the market for new production is limited. Given that dynamic it's also not too surprising that much of the development and new sales would be in larger spans that can also accomodate motors. *It's not so much in my view that pilots want only "the very best", but that *the "very best" product categories are ones where there isn't a big resale market yet. *15M is still a bigger market than Open or 18M if you look at it from the perspective of installed base of ships, contest participation, OLC miles, etc. You just don't need to buy new to get into it and if the market isn't growing overall, you don't need a lot of production.

Hear here! Let the 15 meter two-design class live long and prosper!
(ASW27 owner)
John Cochrane