Wanted: Friendly Single-Seater for PSU Soaring Club

On Fri, 03 Nov 2017 11:41:05 -0700, Phil Chidekel wrote:

Hey All,

The Penn State Soaring club is searching for a friendly single-seater
for our club members to fly. Currently, we lease an ASK-13 from Tom
Knauff and Doris Grove, and the Collegiate Soaring Association lends us
a Russia AC-4C and a 2-33 project (currently being restored by our club
members under the expert tutelage of Mike Robison).

We make very good use of "our" equipment: we recently had three members
pass their private checkrides, and the Russia was flown in the Region 3
competition this summer. However, our eccentric collection of gliders
raises a few issues as we continue to grow.

We have begun by introducing our members to the concept of "aviation for
fun" (beyond intensive training)--flying the ridge after classes,
thermalling with flocks of hawks, retrieves, etc... However, we have
decided that we could boost retention further by having a single-seat
glider friendly enough for student pilots to strap on with shirt-tail
still in hand, as a bridge between the trainers and higher performance.

What do we have in mind? Basically anything metal and docile--1-23,
1-26, 1-34, L-33, B-4, etc... We watch wings and wheels pretty
religiously, but we were wondering if there was anything else out there
"unlisted."

In no particular order and not metal, but an SZD Junior, G.102 Astir,
PW-5 or even a Ka-8 are all decent post-solo single seaters. I suspect
that you'll find Astirs more easily than any of the others on your side
of the pond.

FWIW my club has two Juniors, used as a new pilot's first single seater
and often flown for all three Silver C legs. Many UK clubs use Astirs in
this role and the University student arm of my club used to have a Ka-8
that they replaced with an ASW-19 a few years back.



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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
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