There's one expense no one has mentioned: refinishing. If your glider is finished in polyester gel coat, it will eventually require refinishing, a $20,000 to $30,000+ expense if you pay an expert, less to much less if you can do it all or partly by yourself (an inducement to own it with the right, mechanically handy partner).

Yes, that's more than some gliders are worth. And over the life of the glider, it's not bad: maybe $1,000 to $1,500 per year. But if you buy a 15-year-old glider and the gel coat is already starting to craze and crack, you're probably amortizing it over 5, not 20 years. And you won't get nearly that investment back when you sell it.

How long gel coat lasts depends on the quality of what's on there now, the materials used, the environment in which the glider is stored, and (according to many) whether you do a lot of high-altitude flying with cold-soak/warming cycles and flexing-while-brittle hours. Some pilots keep flying them long after the gel coat is literally flaking off, but there are other problems with this.

Some gliders seem to show signs of aging in a few years. Others go a lot longer. Some brands/types of gel coat last longer. If the glider is finished in polyurethane, it may not need refinishing in your lifetime. Of course, all this applies only to composite, not metal or wood construction.

There's a lot of discussion about what is the best glider to buy, especially for first timers. Three big factors from my perspective a

1. Quality of the finish: glider maintenance is relatively inexpensive...with this exception
2. Quality of the trailer: you'll fly more--and avoid stupid assembly damage--if it's easier to rig
3. Instruments: you can upgrade to the latest whizzy gadgets but it's nice if someone else has already done the install and debugging work. And you don't need the latest stuff to fly XC or even competition.

IMHO.

Chip Bearden