I had a nice Pik 20 and put about 650 hours on it with zero problems. Two suggestions:
Before flying an all-flap glider ask someone to put you in the back seat of a Super Cub and get them to fly (at altitude) at approach speed and put the flaps down so that you get used to the stick pressure required. A nice guy did this for me and the effect was remarkably similar.
Rain and Pik 20 is a well known story and some experimentation in conveniently sized rain showers showed the tales to be true. The Pik when wet will tend to descend very rapidly. A Finnish glider pilot who once was a partner owning a Pik 20 gave me this suggestion: lower the flaps a little (about 8-12 degrees from distant memory) and the problem goes away. OK the glider then doesn't fly that well, but it stops sinking like a brick. Proved this during my experiments.
But then how often do we fly in rain? Not often and this Finnish trick works. Bugs do have an impact on performance but from flying in MD/PA and on bug laden ridges, nothing to be concerned about.
The best bit about a Pik 20 is being able to land in a very tiny piece of field and being certain that it is exceedingly well built with a big strong gear, so rough is less of a problem than with many gliders. Oh and minor dings can be easily fixed with paint. The factory trailer isn't bad either.
So do not discount them. PS: they also go well too.




On Friday, October 16, 2015 at 8:51:58 AM UTC-6, 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.