On Sep 15, 8:37*am, Tony wrote:
Find me one world team member that thinks primary training in a
Schweizer is a good idea. *I doubt you'll have any glowing advocates.

unless it was the only way they could afford the training.

As an advocate of wood and glue your defense of Schweizers puzzles me,
so I'll figure its because your unaware of the far better wooden
alternatives. The Ka7/Berfalke III/IV and the like come up for sale
on a regular basis in the $7-$10k range and offer far better training
and handling characteristics. You can almost begin to teach energy
management in them - they at least have enough energy for one high
speed pass followed by an immediate 180 and landing - don't ask me how
I know. The rear seats have adjustable rudder pedals and *gasp* an
instrument panel.

Perhaps the best thing I can say is that you can teach a student to
land two point or better yet tail first. The inability of such a
large percentage of US pilots to do proper low energy landings is
probably the biggest contributor to the amount of ground loop damage
in outlandings. I remember standing next to one very well regarded
European pilot watching a number of landings at the end of a contest
day. He said to the gathered group "Does anyone in American know how
to land a glider properly? We would not let any of you go solo!"

Try a wooden alternative, you just might like it.

I know of one club who sold their Ka7 last year to "upgrade" to an
L-13. Quite unfortunate.

KJC