On Apr 1, 11:33*am, "noel.wade" wrote:
On Apr 1, 10:43*am, Westbender wrote:

On Apr 1, 12:34*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:

Did you miss this part?

"Under 21.A.57 it states that the TC holder shall update all manuals
if necessary"

Who is going to judge whether these updates are "necessary"?

I still can't believe that a manufacturer would be allowed to use such
an arbitrary "loophole" as a money-making scheme.

I agree, its total B.S. *However, there is no definition of
"necessary" in the laws that are currently written (at least, based on
what he wrote - I am in the USA and don't have time to review the
entire EU/EASA legal code).

I don't think Weber is trying to get rich off of this. *But I *do*
suspect that he's been running his business at a loss, that he thinks
its because of the older gliders, and that he can close the gap by
employing this pay-for-manuals scheme. *I happen to think he's wrong;
but I'm not alone in that opinion. :-P

-----
On a tangent -
-----
Given that glider manufacturing is a pretty labor-intensive process, I
wonder when the Chinese glider manufacturers are going to take off?
For awhile it seemed that affordable new gliders were coming from
Eastern Europe because of the depressed currencies and low labor
costs; but economic developments in those areas have changed the
equation. *China is the logical "next place" for this activity, with
an abundance of cheap labor and the ability to ship out a product
globally. *Some composite LSAs are now being built there and many
radio-controlled gliders are as well. *Its only a hop, a skip, and a
jump from there to a Sailplane! *The tough engineering work can be
done separate from the glider manufacturing itself. *Frankly, I'm
surprised this isn't already happening (there may be a few limited
examples of it already occurring; but why isn't it more wide-spread?)

--Noel

I don't think China is going to be much intested in producing gliders
because the market it so small.