Libelle suitability for beginners

I enjoyed flying the Junior, did my first 3 landouts in Juniors and appreciated the spoiler effectiveness.

But there's some gotchas:

1. The manual softpedals how much forward trim you need for takeoff. I ballooned behind a Pawnee, had one bounce correcting. Then discovered not long later the spoilers had come open.

2. There's a pitch down moment pulling spoilers. A definite change for pilots transitioning from an L-23 which has a mild pitch up.

3. Short pilots with the setback forward pulling full spoilers must watch against twisting their shoulders and inadvertently pushing the stick forward..

I lost a friend who got caught by 2 & 3 close to the ground. She reacted to the unexpected pitch down at 50' by first closing spoilers and subsequently finding herself at 80+ kt. running out of runway and ideas. She yanked full spoilers at ~20' and inadvertently pushed the stick forward.

Do get a proper briefing from somebody who has actually flown the Junior.

Do identify how far back the handle has to go to crack the spoilers open – it's about 1/3.

After release, pull full spoilers to see how it behaves.

Fiddling with spoilers low down makes for interesting landings until you sort out the pitch moment changes.

All that said, the Junior remains my favorite fixed gear single seater, others being PW-5 and L-33, both of which I've landed out in.