In article ,
Brian Iten wrote:

I don't think the PW-5 is that bad of a glider. I only
know one person who owns one and I have yet to fly
one. My only draw back on the idea is that you can
spend the same amount of money for a slower, less L/D,
less performance PW-5 as you can for a faster, higher
L/D, higher performance ASW-20, LS-3, LS-4, DG300 and
so on. I would actually rather own a Libelle than a
PW-5 and I can find Libelle's that are several thousand
dollars cheaper than any PW-5 and they are better performers.

You can do that because the sport is declining.

If the sport was growing then there wouldn't be enough older high
performance gliders to go around, and no one is going to make a *new*
LS-4 (for example) for the price a PW-5 goes for.

And isn't growing the sport what we all hope for?


I really don't know what people have against the PW-5. Sure, I like
higher performance ships too. I fly a Janus more than anything else,
and I've flown both Duo Discus and DG1000, and they're all decent
gliders which, as I understand it, perform similarly to the current best
Standard Class gliders. So I think I have some idea of what you'd find
acceptable. (I haven't flown anything else on your list except the
Libelle, in both "std" and "club" versions). But I have no problem at
all with strapping myself into a PW-5 at a contest along with a dozen
other people in the same type of aircraft (or similar, such as the Ka6),
and we have a lot of fun on our little 200 km tasks.

-- Bruce

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------