Short Wings Gliders

At 12:30 02 February 2009, Derek Copeland wrote:
One of the reasons the PW5 never caught on in the UK, apart from its
appearance, is that you could buy a secondhand Standard Cirrus, Libelle,
Pegasus, ASW19, or any any other first/second generation glass Std Class
15 metre span glider, more cheaply and with much better performance.
These
gliders compete in our 'Club Class' competitions, which are normally
oversubscribed. There is not enough interest in the 'World Class' to
make it worthwhile to organize a National Comp.

So how *do* we explain the continuing (I hope) popularity of the Schweizer
1-26 in America? I mean, the performance really is pretty low in modern
terms. Proponents like to say that one advantage of the 1-26 is that the
retrieves are always shorter. But then somebody like Ron Schwartz
demonstrates that it ain't necessarily so. Flying cross country in a
1-26 does tend to separate the men from the dilettantes, I suppose. And
you can find some sort of one-class 1-26 competition on both sides of the
Mississippi every year. I've been to two 1-26 Championships so far, and
I've gotta admit that the 1-26 crew knows how to have a good time. What
is it about the ship that attracts such a wacky crowd?

Of course, the glider *is* dirt cheap, and you can have unending amounts
of fun painting it any color scheme you want, and still leave it outside.

It is possible that Blairstown now has the highest number of 1-26s of
various models based at one field (I think we've got at least 12 now).
And what attracted the last one or two was the chance to fly with (and
against) other 1-26s on a regular basis. It will be interesting to see
how this develops this year. And I expect the club will encourage our
newer pilots to take the club 1-26s out and run with the rest of the pack.
Such fun, and so cheap.

Jim Beckman (234, 664, 363 and a few others)