Schweizer visit to the desert

Oops

Should be 1.48234 €cents!

Bob

The trend is obvious; I object only to the 'one size
fits all' notion.

At 20:01 15 October 2007, wrote:
Ian

I hadn't intended on disparaging the Schweitzer's nor
their gliders! I
think the 1-26 may just be outranked only by the Libelle
for beauty.

I am a fan of J3's, Champs, Stearmans and AT6's, planes
that I have
experienced, but J3's are not used for early training
anymore
(although I am now sure to learn from RAS that they
most certainly
used in 3 locations worldwide for initial training)
although that is
what they were designed for 'wayback when'! If General
Aviation flight
training had not latched onto the 'modern' Cessna 150
or 172 for
general man off the street customers the world of GA
would probably be
a lot different, the GA fleet would assumably be much
smaller. And
heck, a lot of those flight training FBO's are now
looking to replace
their existing fleets with composite aircraft. See
the trend?

Again, just my 1.58234 (dollar value changed again
this afternoon)
=80cents worth!

Bob

Bob Whelan wrote:

That noted, choosing to continue to use older ships (e.g. Schweizers,
Grobs [don't laugh, my club is presently in the throes of precisely this
debate, and a 102 and 103 are 'the bad ships'], AS K-7/13's etc.), is
*NOT* a acornworthy decision, any more than an individual choosing to
keep and maintain an older vehicle (assuming it still meets its mission)
in place of periodically updating it 'just because,' is. Both
approaches have value, and pros, and cons.

Personally, until someone can, or, events (some other club's, ha ha)
demonstrate to me that a bet-the-club, economically risky
(gambling-based?) approach to growing (as distinct from merely
'churning') soaring has value, I find it difficult to out-of-hand
dismiss continuing to use proven hardware that with fundamentally low
carrying costs.

I'd just like to add one thought: IMO the utility of low performance
trainers depends quite a lot on launch method.

I learnt on ASK-21 / G.103 / Puchacz off a Supacat winch, which pretty
much guaranteed 1200 feet with these gliders under calm conditions and
could give up to 2000 ft as wind strength rose. 1200 ft gives about 7
minutes in no-lift conditions with any of these trainers and a good
chance of thermal flights if there is much lift about. I did all my spin
training, apart from the initial demo, off the winch. IOW we found
enough lift to easily get to 3000+ feet on those flights.

By contrast, I periodically make attempts to get type approval for our
T.21b but its hard going. At 20:1 you don't cross the airfield boundary
without a good thermal climb, so a typical flight is a bare 5 minutes.
The T.21b doesn't climb well on the cable. This is barely enough time to
get a feel for the glider before you're turning base.

From this I make the, possibly dangerous, generalization that if your
club normally aero tows your can get by with lower performance trainers
than, e.g. a flat land winching site can use.

As a corollary, there's an obvious trade-off between tow vs winch costs
and the cost of low performance vs high performance two seaters. If, as
I suspect, increasing fuel prices tilt the balance toward winching then
just maybe the older, low performance trainers will start to look less
attractive.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Recommend, ..... "Wings like eagles".....

If you want to know who attended the SSA winter director meeting of 1957
on March 8-9 in Hollywood, California, and what was discussed, this book
is for you. I respect the Schweizer brothers a lot, but for me, this
book was a great way to get some quality sleep. Obviously, YMMV.

Tony V.

We had a similar debate quite recently - see the PW6U thread. There's
strong arguments on both sides of the debate.

Old ships are cheaper to buy and insure, and probably about the same
to maintain (replacing fabric vs. re-gels). Certainly reduces costs
significantly. If a new member is really keen, he won't mind flying an
older glider. The kind of member who's only interested in flying the
latest shiny glider probably isn't in for the long-term.

On the other hand, new GRP gliders are much safer in a crash or heavy
landing (this is a very strong argument imho). They much more
comfortable for an instructor to spend all day in. They can be used
for XC training with ease - not struggling along, especially if your
club isn't blessed with always-booming conditions. Teaching XC in a
glider with performance representative of a glass single-seater is
much more relevant. Perhaps 90% of pilots will end up in a GRP single-
seater - training should reflect that. You need a "slippery" GRP
trainer for conversion at the very least, and I'd suggest that for
consistency the whole training fleet should either be one or the
other. I trained on a mixed wood and GRP fleet and having to adapt to
the very different flying characteristics of each every session really
slowed me down. Finally, having modern, attractive fleet is not
exactly a negative.


Dan

On Oct 14, 4:08 pm, jeplane wrote:
I recommend parking the Schweizers: they belong in museums!

Bringing new people to this sport and showing them a 40 years old
aircraft do nothing to promote soaring in this world of shinny ipods,
ATV's, mortorcycles etc...

PS: boy, do I expect to be lynched with this post!...:-)


Gliding is a Hobby to some and a Sport to others.

The Hobby folks like various aspects like antiques, designing and
building their own glider, building a kit,
creating a great paint job and just tooling around the sky aimlessly
at times following their inner bird like impulses.

The Sporting folks like to race, optimize their performance and the
gliders, go the farthest, highest, longest and win....its a game for
them.

I'm sure there are other kinds of gliding folks as well that just like
the social aspects , stories, events, BBQ's....etc etc

Its all good....live and let live!

Just go out and have your own kind of fun....plain and simple.

Ray

I think you meant PLANE and simple

Scott
ANY glider is OK to me!!

jb92563 wrote:



I'm sure there are other kinds of gliding folks as well that just like
the social aspects , stories, events, BBQ's....etc etc

Its all good....live and let live!

Just go out and have your own kind of fun....plain and simple.

Ray


--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die
Building RV-4 (Super Slow Build Version)