On Friday, April 5, 2013 7:24:28 AM UTC-4, Evan Ludeman wrote:
We need *trainers* and a safe, reliable, economical way to launch them. The PW-6 is the closest thing on the market.

I'm just beginning to appreciate the ballsy and audacious mindset of XC pilots; the mindset that it takes to fly 500 km without a motor...

But that mindset may be one of the reasons why the trainer problem goes unsolved. Some propose (in typical XC pilot fashion) that to solve the trainer problem, we need to be extremely clever and expertly negotiate an interdependent series of bold but calculated risks. These risks include bringing skilled labor intensive manufacturing back to the USA economy. Oh really?

On the other hand, we already have a glider factory in Poland http://www.szdjezow.com.pl/ofirmie_eng.html that would be a lot more viable and long-surviving if it got some more orders from the USA. Do you really think that soaring is big enough to support two trainer manufacturers at the same time? Let's just shoot ourselves in the foot and try to compete with The Glider Factory "JEŻÓW". Nobody wins and if JEZOW goes bankrupt, the clubs that have invested in a PW-6 lose.

Nationalistic competitive attitudes are counter-productive to solving the trainer problem. The way to demonstrate the greatness of the USA soaring community is to step up now and invest in some new trainers. The Founding Fathers (of soaring) did that once already when they ponied up the money for 314 SGS 2-33s. Where did that kind of audaciousness go?