Future Club Training Gliders

Hi Alan

The argument about cost of ownership is true, but you have the real cost
the wrong way around.

An all the bessl and whistles Duodiscus with a sustainer engine and top
of the line ground handling gear will cost you around $160k, the DG1000
is similar.
You can bring the costs down to ~$110K by speccing for club use.

So - a considerable investment.
But put the real numbers into a spreadsheet and it makes sense.
The new composite has an airframe life of 6000 hours initial + up to
15000 on extensions. So work on a time to trash of 6000 hours.
then consider the operating costs -
The maintenance effort on a 30-40 year old glider is considerable.
Recover costs lots in time and effort to do - and the glider is not
flying while that happens. Optimistically this is a three week job.
The tubes and timber rust, rot, bend and generally need attention -
particularly in the wet.
The older ones have skids that wear out and need replacement every few
years.
The instruments are often as old as the glider, and need refurbishment
(winter is great and cheap - others are less so)

Metal gliders get fatigue, and depending on where you operate, may need
very rare skills to maintain.

The composite fleet needs very little maintenance in comparison. I fly
at a couple of clubs.
One that has three Grob Twin Astirs with tens of thousands of launches
and hours between them. And , indeed after thirty years of intensive use
they are getting a little tired. Still look and fly a lot better than
what they replaced, and the actual cost of operation is lower. This club
has 20+ students at any one time and is thriving. T'other bunch have a
couple of Bergfalkes and a L13. It continues to stagger along - current
situation is L13 grounded (we took it out of service before the AD
because of loose rivets on the wings needing repair) and one Bergie out
of service for a new skid.

Both clubs have three aircraft - but the vintage operators battle to
consistently have two gliders airworthy and on the runway.

So - I am all for keeping the vintage stuff flying, but it is
uneconomical to depend on them for running a club. The cost of
maintenance, cost of downtime and cost of members who lose interest when
they see them is too high for them to be the sole training option in a
club operation. A "blended" approach like Lasham where there is some K13
and some glass makes a lot of sense. But the K13 is about the only wood
and fabric trainer I would recommend - and they are getting old.

Bruce
On 2010/11/11 8:59 AM, Alan wrote:
In Bruce writes:

Where I'd quibble is whether people should be buying brand new ASK21's
TODAY. We looked at them several years ago but they're hellishly
expensive for what they are. It turned out that if you got a fixed
gear, fixed 18m span DG1000 with none of the optional extras then the
price was only a few thousand more than an ASK21 and can do everything
an ASK21 can do, but with 10 points more L/D.

And the DG is also expensive. I am not certain about the service
life of any of these, but if they are 3000 hours to scrap, then the
current $102,500 price (74300 Euro posted by unclhank on 10/21/10)
$34.17 per hour just for the capital of the glider, not counting
maintenance, insurance, taxes, storage.

If you can run them longer, the cost goes down, but the hourly cost
of operation is still high.

Show the potential student the ask-12 or the dg-1000, and show him
the cost of operation, along with an old glider that doesn't have the
high hourly operating costs, and a lot will figure that saving a bunch
of money is good - it can mean more flying time in the less impresive
glider.

( Written by one who did a lot of my primary training in the least
expensive Cessna 150 I could find. I got more time in the air for
the same money, too. )

Alan

--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771 & Std Cirrus #57