On Friday, October 16, 2015 at 7:51:58 AM UTC-7, PAGA wrote:
Hi all,

After a long break from gliders, last year I moved close to an airfield and resumed flying at the local soaring club on Blanik metal 2-seaters. While this is always a lot of fun I am tempted to finally get my own one-seater and start practice longer flights, with slightly better performance than the L23, and also maybe take it on the road to fly elsewhere in the US.

Most of my previous one-seater experience was on Grob 102, both in Europe and in the US : I was looking for a used one and missed a local sale by a few weeks/days. While searching other available used ships not too far from me, within the set performances and the price range I want to commit to, I have narrowed it down to a PIK20, or a LS-1 or an ASW19, in similar conditions and within my parameters (L/D, sink rate, instruments, size, weight, type, etc... i.e. similar to the Grob) and price range (+/- a few $K).

This is the first time I am considering owning my own ship, and I am sure this forum has seen this kind of question a million times (apologies for the duplicate thread) I searched some of these threads but I need to ask a more experience crowd about my specific choice : how to decide between these 3 fine sailplanes, what should I do/ask/check with the sellers in order avoid obvious mistakes and make it easier to decide?

My main concerns are very "grounded" : how to deal with maintenance (when the manufacturer is no longer around for example), and how hard/easy is it to assemble/store them back in the trailer. Of course I am sure these ships handle differently when in the air but I am not too concerned about learning how to deal with each flying specifics/idiosyncrasy, at this point I feel most of my challenges are actually going to be when on land :-)

Thank you all for your time.

I have owned both Schleicher and DGs (ASW19, ASH26E and DG400). I have found Schleicher to be much easier to deal with than DG, who virtually dares you to be a customer. True, you won't have to pay the DG "tax" unless you actually need spare parts, but then you will have to ante up 495 Euro to be allowed the "privilege" of buying them. AND you will have to pay 300 Euro per year thereafter. Do the math: if you own the glider for 10 years that adds up to over 3,000 Euros ($3,300)! And this does not include the price of the parts! I regard this policy as the MOST ill conceived marketing blunder I have ever encountered. And this isn't even the most grievous complaint I have with DG management. I encountered unprecedented resistance to corrected a very significant error in the DG400's POH. DG eventually corrected it, but not after first calling me, basically, an idiot.