Flat Spin

Eric Greenwell wrote:
I'm sure improvements in glider manufacturing will continue, but I don't
see any thing dramatic coming along. To build a cheap glider now can be
done: make it small, make it light, and build 3 a week so the molds are
always busy and the factory space is all in use.

How cheap would this 11-12 meter, 35:1 glider have to be so they could
sell that many? Already, I can hear people saying "That is silly! for
only a little extra you make a 15 meter glider!" and "That is silly! for
the same price you can buy a used glider with more performance!".

I think we could build a good, cheap glider, but I don't think we could
sell it.

I'll toss out my idea again. With airplanes, cost very closely
correlates with mass, and goes down rapidly with the number of
gliders/cars/toasters produced. Setting up racing and record classes
based on mass rather than wingspan would create a motivation for low
mass gliders, which would be lower cost. The ultralight class is too
light, I think, but has the right idea. There's records to be set all
over the place in that class.

Maybe to avoid the race for exotic materials, have a kind of standard
material class (Al, glass) and an exotics class (carbon fibre).