Hi Shawn,

Here are some replies to your excellent post:

This subject has beaten the dead horse into dog food and baseballs by
now. *More Purina than home runs I'm afraid ;-)
Nevertheless...

Agree..................but the more water that goes over a ducks back,
eventually some water soaks in................I hope the same can be
said here, in a metaphorical sense.........


...We know what *shape* we want, that's pretty easy. *What ever *It* is,
it should be shaped similarly to a Discus, LS-8, ASW-24 etc.

Working on the shapes now, that's pretty easy with modern CAD
programs.

15 m span,

Agree completely, maybe even leave room for a 17m extension at the
tip.

flapless (I like flaps, but a volksglider should be
flapless IMHO),

Flaps would be easy enough to do, I think, but I would not rule out
your suggestion either, after all, it is a Volksglider.

retractable gear, known quantity.

Agree.

What would make such a beast unique, and affordable, is the way that
shape gets produced.

Have that covered


I suspect the prepreg technique used in the Sparrowhawk is in the right
direction. *

Here is disagree. Greg is fortunate to have use of the huge autoclave
at the Lancair/Columbia factory, I think.
Although Out of Autoclave could be done with the right tooling and
materials. But I think wet layup and vacuum bagging would be cheaper.


Farm out fabric cutting to someone who could laser cut many
ships worth of cloth when the price is low?

Good idea............I would guess that this would depend on the
number of ships to be produced.


*Also, with all the wind
farms going up around the world, the technology involved in
manufacturing big composite wings should be improving rapidly. *Perhaps
wings with a significant portion of constant cord/profile (half span?)
with a mass produced, extruded spar that is cut into a segment for each
wing (diverges from the Discus-esque shape but at what performance
cost?) could simplify production.

I would make a wing with an LS-3 planform. Carbon/H-60 foam core.
Graphlite spar caps.

Posters here have said that a significant amount of the labor that goes
into the manufacture of gliders is in the sanding and polishing to get a
glassy smooth surface. *On behalf of all the pilots who've happily flown
30 year old gliders with crappy finishes *"Who cares?". *If I could get
a solid performing glider with a dull white finish at 2/3 the price,
that's fine with me. *Perhaps some decrease in surface waviness is
realized in the process, but modern gliders shrink significantly over
the first few years anyway, negating some of the benefit, so why pay for
sanding twice?

Agree................throw a sandable primer coat into the molds and
have the buyer do the finishing to their standards/needs/requirements.

My $ 0.02 (On sale half price tomorrow only!)

Thanks!

Brad


P.S. *Sorry that this is so disjointed, dinner's ready *:-)

mines on hold................had to take a dog to the vets............:
(