Another First Glider Question

solo89 wrote:
Let me first apoplogize for posting a first glider question. What the
heck, there's not much soaring weather out there to distract us this
time of year.

A Ventus A is up for sale at a very attractive price in the local
club. I currently have about an hour on my brand new ticket. I think
the plastic is still warm.

Assuming I have the discipline to fly 20 - 30 hours in G102/G103 (the
103 was my trainer) what are the odds of surviving with a Ventus A and
not much experience ?

I am a conservative person by nature and doubt I'll do anything
actively stupid. Passive stupidity is an entirely different matter.

At the very least, I think the first few landings may be intimidating.
I will have the luxury of about 4000' feet of grass or 5000' of
pavement when landing.

I agree with Stu. I had about 150 hours total and 20 hours in a Astir
CS when I got my Ventus b. I did fine, but felt like if I had much less
experience, I would have really been pushing it. The biggest issue with
flying the Ventus IMHO is that you must ALWAYS be attenting to it
especially without winglets. It wants to wander off in some new
direction (up down left or right) as soon as you reach for your water,
sectional, p-bag etc. Gets tiring, and could be overwhelming in a high
stress situation for a very low time pilot.
Some may mention flaps and the dive brake/flap combo fro landing as
issues too. I had no trouble but YMMV.
For similar money you should be able to find an LS-4 or ASW-19 with a
great trailer and instrument setup. More prudent choices.

BTW search Google Groups for previous posts on Ventus handling. Much
has been written.

Cheers,
Shawn