On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 8:20:50 AM UTC-5, Kiwi User wrote:
On Wed, 14 Feb 2018 03:58:51 -0800, AS wrote:

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 7:46:26 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
You may not be aware of the new sailplanes being publicly released this
year.

1. From Poland comes the news release of the Diana 3. It is an 18
metre ship with a conventional spar - unlike the Diana 2 which is
sparless. The 'Three' is a real 'looker.'

2. The new Diana 2 has been worked on and now comes with a FES. They
are guaranteeing that the FES makes the "Two" a self launcher.

3. Schempp-Hirth are aggressively promoting their Ventus 3 Sport. An
all new fuselage that will accommodate taller pilots.

4. From Russia comes the release of an all new 13.5m sailplane. It
looks good too! They are claiming it will be the cheapest competition
sailplane on the market. It should be a first sailplane buy for any new
competition pilot to get into the scene.

5. Blanik are making reductions in cost to modify their spars.

Its a busy time for us getting all these stories into our March issue.

JOHN ROAKE EDITOR GLIDING INTERNATIONAL

Any new affordable trainers to replace the aging fleet of 2-33,
TwinAstir or K21 models on the horizon? Without them, we are just
rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!
Uli 'AS'

I can see why you might niggle about Twin Astirs/Grob Acros and the 2-33,
but what's wrong with the ASK-21? On good days our instructors take near
solo students on out and return flights to the club at Husbands Bosworth,
70km away, in ours. AFAIK they haven't landed out yet doing this.

In any case the SZD-54 Perkoz is worth looking at. It has similar
performance to the ASK-21 with 17.8m wings. Add the 20m extensions with
winglets and its also a 42:1 XC trainer.

Perkoz website says 17.5m wings, claims 37:1 (vs ASK-21 34:1). http://szd.com.pl/downloads/4e898c26...-perkoz-en.pdf ; never flown one but it looked nice at a previous SSA convention. According to the Transport Canada registry, there are 3 in the country (Edmonton, Quebec, Toronto). Certainly worth a look. Factory support for my SZD-55 has been good, and also for our club Puchacz...

I'll be interested to see item 5 - like many clubs, we have an L-13 at the back of the hangar. A north american-available (no european shipping) cost-effective fix would be nice...