LS10 info

It takes a lot of labor to produce a glider, and labor has become more
expensive. So the traditional manufacturers are struggling while new
ones are producing considerable cheaper gliders in countries where
labor is a lot cheaper. (What would a Lak-17A be, about 65.000 euro`s
ready to fly?)
If the prices would have been the problem I think everyone was flying
those ugly Peewee`s. And they`re not.

Stop blaming the manufacturers for the low value of the dollar. Why not
start a sailplane manufacturer in the US of A, labor is cheap over
there isn`t it?

J. N. wrote:
It takes a lot of labor to produce a glider, and labor has become more
expensive. So the traditional manufacturers are struggling while new
ones are producing considerable cheaper gliders in countries where
labor is a lot cheaper. (What would a Lak-17A be, about 65.000 euro`s
ready to fly?)
If the prices would have been the problem I think everyone was flying
those ugly Peewee`s. And they`re not.

Stop blaming the manufacturers for the low value of the dollar. Why not
start a sailplane manufacturer in the US of A, labor is cheap over
there isn`t it?

Ford just announced 30,000 jobs cut. I think you're right!

Shawn

Lots of good comments about relative prices of gliders and personal
incomes now and in the past. It's a mix of currency flutuations (we've
been whipsawed in both directions in the U.S.), inflation, the high
proportion of labor in manufacturing costs, etc. It's hard to blame the
manufacturers. Their order books are full. And the marketplace seems to
be working the way it should: i.e., weaker or high-cost manufacturers
exit and new and/or lower-cost makers enter.

A few other factors that I think have changed:

1. Avionics: my instrument panels 30 years ago were full race...with an
altimeter, airspeed, compass, a couple of variometers, an audio, a
radio, and a cardboard final glide calculator. Today one vario is an
expensive flight computer driving a PDA. And now (at the competitive
level) you need at least one IGC-approved flight recorder (read: low
volume, high price).

2. Time: in the "old days," most of us had much more time to save money
through do-it-yourself, ranging from building your own glider to
building a trailer to (in my case) building a couple of RST radios.
Forget that; I don't even have time to do the wing smoothing and other
tweaking I used to do. I'm lucky to be able to fly every few weekends
if the weather is good.

3. Joint ownership: at least in the U.S., I believe there is far more
reluctance to own a competition glider with one or more partners. The
first Libelle 301 I ever saw was owned by three pilots in the midwest
(including one Wil Schuemann). Many guys had partners, the lucky ones
having found someone with absolutely no interest in contest flying. The
easiest way to cut the cost of a glider in half then and now is sharing
the cost. But it seems that a lot more of us (myself included, I'll
admit) are so stressed for time and uncertain about our schedules that
we choose to go it alone (because of my work, I typically "lock in" on
a contest for sure the week before, including the nationals).

I'm also curious as to the relative price of used gliders vs. personal
income. My family was always able to sell one glider for more than we
paid to help finance the next one, whether we were selling a glider we
bought new or used. Unlike what is still true for real estate, that
seems extremely unlikely to happen this time (if I am ever able to
afford/justify a new glider). Much of it is due to currency swings, I
think. But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
inflation and/or personal income?

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

wrote:
And now (at the competitive level) you need at least one IGC-approved
flight recorder (read: low volume, high price).

No, you do not need an IGC-approved flight recorder to compete in most
countries. In the US, you only need one if you want US Team points, a
$100 Garmin handheld is fine, otherwise.

3. Joint ownership: at least in the U.S., I believe there is far more
reluctance to own a competition glider with one or more partners. The
first Libelle 301 I ever saw was owned by three pilots in the midwest
(including one Wil Schuemann). Many guys had partners, the lucky ones
having found someone with absolutely no interest in contest flying. The
easiest way to cut the cost of a glider in half then and now is sharing
the cost. But it seems that a lot more of us (myself included, I'll
admit) are so stressed for time and uncertain about our schedules that
we choose to go it alone (because of my work, I typically "lock in" on
a contest for sure the week before, including the nationals).

Having jointly owned a number of gliders, I have to say that the savings
are not quite as much as they might seem. The single biggest
non-capital cost for most of us is insurance, and insuring a glider for
two costs 1.6 to 1.7 times insuring it for one. Maintenance costs are
also higher, since it gets flown more. The primary advantage, to me, of
joint ownership is the reduction in the amount of hard cash I have
invested in a toy.

I'm also curious as to the relative price of used gliders vs. personal
income. My family was always able to sell one glider for more than we
paid to help finance the next one, whether we were selling a glider we
bought new or used. Unlike what is still true for real estate, that
seems extremely unlikely to happen this time (if I am ever able to
afford/justify a new glider). Much of it is due to currency swings, I
think. But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
inflation and/or personal income?

Any such calculation has too many fluctuating variables to be useful. I
suspect that as long as one has a perceived completive German made
glider in hand, it is possible to flip it for the latest and greatest
every five years or so at a relatively small (10%?) incremental cost.
If you have anything else, you are subject to the whims of the
marketplace...

Marc

No, you do not need an IGC-approved flight recorder to compete in most
countries. In the US, you only need one if you want US Team points, a
$100 Garmin handheld is fine, otherwise.

True. You don't "need" a flight computer either, but it helps.
Practically speaking, it's also helpful to have a device that records
pressure altitude in a form acceptable to the rules. In the U.S., that
usually means an IGC-approved flight recorder. I used a Garmin handheld
as a backup this year and it downloads traces that overlay those from
my Cambridge GPS-NAV almost perfectly. But the altitudes recorded are
often enough different that I'd have occasionally busted the start
cylinder ceiling if flying the altimeter or given up several hundred
feet at the start if flying the Garmin. We can argue all day/all
night/all day/all night about whether we should switch over to GPS
altitude but until the rules makers agree, GPS receivers that have
pressure sensors (that don't recalibrate themselves automatically based
on GPS altitude) are highly useful. And they are an expense that
compares unfavorably to the Kodak Instamatic cameras I used for a long
time.

Having jointly owned a number of gliders, I have to say that the savings
are not quite as much as they might seem. The single biggest
non-capital cost for most of us is insurance, and insuring a glider for
two costs 1.6 to 1.7 times insuring it for one. Maintenance costs are
also higher, since it gets flown more. The primary advantage, to me, of
joint ownership is the reduction in the amount of hard cash I have
invested in a toy.

I agree, based on my own experiences with joint ownership, although
until the premium for insuring two named pilots passes 100%, it's still
cheaper to share the cost. Hangar/tiedown/storage costs, annuals,
registration fees, etc., get split 50:50. I personally haven't noticed
that my maintenance costs vary much with hours flown, but I supposed
there are some items, such as trailer tires, for which it could be
true. Even for tires, batteries, and the big one--gel coat--though, age
seems a more typical criterion than hours flown.

Regardless, operating costs are probably not what prevents people from
buying a glider. It's ponying up $70,000 to $100,000, as you say,
that's the biggest hurdle. And joint ownership is a very effective way
of chopping that down to a smaller size.

But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
inflation and/or personal income?

Any such calculation has too many fluctuating variables to be useful. I
suspect that as long as one has a perceived completive German made
glider in hand, it is possible to flip it for the latest and greatest
every five years or so at a relatively small (10%?) incremental cost.
If you have anything else, you are subject to the whims of the
marketplace...

Actually, I see very few pilots, even at the top, "flipping" gliders
every five years. The switching costs alone are pretty imposing
(freight, duty, insurance, and the time/expense to install new
instruments). And I think someone with an analytical bent could draw
some interesting conclusions from a study of used glider prices over
the years, perhaps comparing prices of previous generation sailplanes
of a certain age against new prices of the succeeding generation.
Multiple regression analysis has the ability to prove almost anything
if you add enough factors to a few data points but those with more
brainpower and time than I possess could doubtless tell us whether or
not gliders are still the great investment that my dad convinced my
mother they were back in the 1960s.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"