On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 10:43:08 AM UTC+3, gotovkotzepkoi wrote:
;940545 Wrote:
What we need in soaring is a new glider built for a reasonable price.
$150,000 for a new glider is just not even a consideration for most
people. Let's face it, you can get a low mileage Ferrari for half that
price!

The PW-5 was a terrible failure. The engineers made the wingspan too
short, without a common T-tail and failed to have the gear retract.

What we really need is something that looks like an ASW-19 bare bones
that is brand new for $25,000.

It needs to have only the basics:
-15 meter wingspan
-T-tail
-Retractable landing gear
-Hinged canopy
-Airspeed
-Altimeter
-Basic VSI (no audio)
-Tube trailer
-Mag compass

With a basic tube trailer similar.

If the PW-5 can be made for around that price, so could something like
this.

Just to get a basic sailplane for $25,000 that has a 35:1 to 40:1 glide
ratio, pilots could once again afford this sport and it would be one
less reason for pilots to not get into soaring.

Cheap launch is more important than somebody selling a new sailplane for
$25k. Until winch launch becomes wide spread, as it is in Germany, you
can kiss this sport goodbye. It will never totally die out but it will
atrophy to near nothing. That's a fact. Aero tows are simply too
expensive.

It would be interesting to know the true cost of winch launch.

During my absence in Europe, my club in NZ has sold the pawnee and bought a new winch. They're currently charging exactly the same (NZ$45, about 30 EUR/USD) for a winch launch as it previously cost for a 1500 ft tow.

The aerotow prices were adjusted over decades of experience to fairly accurately account for all fixed and variable costs, periodic engine overhauls, replacing the fabric etc and make the towing operation a self-contained break-even cost centre within the club.

I'm *hoping* that charging the same for the winch will result in the US$120k or so of member loans to buy the winch being paid off in three or five years, leaving an asset with many decades of life and low running costs, and that launch prices will then be reduced. A lot. I don't know how much. It's only a bit more than six months since the winch went into real production use.