At 14:15 02 February 2009, Jim Beckman wrote:
At 12:30 02 February 2009, Derek Copeland wrote:
One of the reasons the PW5 never caught on in the UK, apart from its
appearance, is that you could buy a secondhand Standard Cirrus,
Libelle,
Pegasus, ASW19, or any any other first/second generation glass Std
Class
15 metre span glider, more cheaply and with much better performance.
These
gliders compete in our 'Club Class' competitions, which are normally
oversubscribed. There is not enough interest in the 'World Class' to
make it worthwhile to organize a National Comp.

So how *do* we explain the continuing (I hope) popularity of the
Schweizer
1-26 in America?

Masochism perhaps? Or maybe you can get away with low performance gliders
in the booming soaring conditions and high cloudbases you allegedly get in
the States. In the cloudy little UK, you need all the performance you can
get, to glide through the *difficult* patches of weather.

Derek Copeland