Comparison of glider classes at Uvalde...

In a climate where taxing the rich has gotten to be so in vogue here's
a situation where the richer folks kinda volunteer to subsidize the
rest of the market a bit. Thanks!

9B *(another 27 owner)

my heart goes out to those overtaxed rich folks...............anything
I can do to help?

Brad

On Monday, August 20, 2012 6:27:19 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:
In a climate where taxing the rich has gotten to be so in vogue here's

a situation where the richer folks kinda volunteer to subsidize the

rest of the market a bit. Thanks!



9B *(another 27 owner)



my heart goes out to those overtaxed rich folks...............anything

I can do to help?



Brad

Yep, ofter Andy $50k for his old, tired, ASW-27b....

Darryl

On Aug 20, 6:30*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Monday, August 20, 2012 6:27:19 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:
In a climate where taxing the rich has gotten to be so in vogue here's

a situation where the richer folks kinda volunteer to subsidize the

rest of the market a bit. Thanks!

9B *(another 27 owner)

my heart goes out to those overtaxed rich folks...............anything

I can do to help?

Brad

Yep, ofter Andy $50k for his old, tired, ASW-27b....

Darryl

actually, my Tetra is probably just a few points under that
27b..................and I have the distinct honor of being the
builder!

Brad

On Monday, August 20, 2012 8:37:41 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:
On Aug 20, 6:30*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Monday, August 20, 2012 6:27:19 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:

In a climate where taxing the rich has gotten to be so in vogue here's



a situation where the richer folks kinda volunteer to subsidize the



rest of the market a bit. Thanks!



9B *(another 27 owner)



my heart goes out to those overtaxed rich folks...............anything



I can do to help?



Brad



Yep, ofter Andy $50k for his old, tired, ASW-27b....



Darryl



actually, my Tetra is probably just a few points under that

27b..................and I have the distinct honor of being the

builder!



Brad

Well demonstrate its performance (and significantly better cost/performance - depends I suspect on how you value personal time/effort ?) vs. an ASW-27 in a few contests and you will be helping the ongoing success of 15m gliders by further deflating the used market price of ASW-27.

Darryl

On Aug 20, 8:55*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Monday, August 20, 2012 8:37:41 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:
On Aug 20, 6:30*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Monday, August 20, 2012 6:27:19 PM UTC-7, Brad wrote:

In a climate where taxing the rich has gotten to be so in vogue here's

a situation where the richer folks kinda volunteer to subsidize the

rest of the market a bit. Thanks!

9B *(another 27 owner)

my heart goes out to those overtaxed rich folks...............anything

I can do to help?

Brad

Yep, ofter Andy $50k for his old, tired, ASW-27b....

Darryl

actually, my Tetra is probably just a few points under that

27b..................and I have the distinct honor of being the

builder!

Brad

Well demonstrate its performance (and significantly better cost/performance - depends I suspect on how you value personal time/effort ?) vs. an ASW-27 in a few contests and you will be helping the ongoing success of 15m gliders by further deflating the used market price of ASW-27.

Darryl

Darryl,

Bob is planning on finishing up the one he is working on a getting it
into the hands of someone who can make a good comp showing. The really
time consuming part, at least from a kit building perspective will be
the painting and finishing, as far as putting a kit together, it
should take a few hundred hours...............not the 5+ years it took
us to build the Tetra from barrels of resin and rolls of carbon.

My experience has shown it climbs with and has out-climbed several
modern ships, and I'm a crappy pilot!

Brad

On Aug 20, 10:27*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
On Aug 20, 9:41*am, Tim Taylor wrote:

On Aug 20, 8:34*am, Steve Koerner wrote:

Considering only the 12 competition days that all three classes were scored...

The average winning speed in 18m class was 148.9kph (92.5mph).

In 15m, the average winner was 4.6% slower than 18m at 142.0kph (88.2mph).

Open class winner was 0.8% faster than 18m on average at 150.1kph (93..3mph).

Isn't it interesting that all of that new technology in open class had so little actual benefit in the final analysis?

But how do the prices of the gliders compare? *We are pricing the
majority of pilots out of the market for a minor gain in performance.

The real advantage of open class is not in booming weather, it's when
the weather gets weak and a 60:1 glide takes you over fields full of
landed-out 15 meter gliders. Bigger gliders also can carry motors and
still get light wingloadings when times get tough. The amazing part of
flying in Uvalde is no 2 knot days.

Anyway, "we" aren't pricing pilots out of anything. The manufacturers
have made available a wide variety of contest worthy gliders, from the
PW5, to standard, 15, 18, duo, and open. You can buy fly and compete
at the world level in any of these you'd like. The interesting fact is
that pilots are voting with their wallets for the very best, despite
astronomical cost. PW5 class died from lack of interest, and no new
standard or 15 meter gliders are being produced. This is entirely by
the choice of pilots, not some amorphous "we" behind the scenes.

John Cochrane


John,

I think the variable you are missing in the current purchasing
behavior is uncertainty. I am not sure if it is implicit or explicit
but the IGC has left the Standard and 15M class with an unknown
future. It was assumed that one of the classes would be phased out
with the creation of the 18M class. Without a clear plan why would
anyone buy a new glider for a class that you are not sure will exist
in a few years.

If the IGC would clearly define the future for the classes then both
the manufactures and potential customers could decide to support new
gliders specifically designed for the classes. Right now the only
sure class is the 18M so that is what is being built. The next
generation of 15M specific glider would be under 500 pounds empty (the
Duck Hawk has already shown that) if there was a clear statement that
the class will still exist.

Tim

On Monday, August 20, 2012 6:20:47 PM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
Huh? Subsidizing what market? Is here a market for new ASW-27 AFAIK. Yes they are still on Schleichers web site, but 1. can you still order one and 2. if so how many are being ordered, and 3. At what cost--compered to an ASG-29/15 and ASG-29/18?

Darryl

Last I checked the longer span ships cost up to 2.5x what the span-limited ships do (be that a -29/15 or a -27). and if I look at the pricing versus what the incremental materials and labor likely are it would appear that they are higher gross margin and therefore are covering a lot more of the fixed costs of the overall operation. Some of the pressure on older designs/classes may be an large resale market that keeps the price down. In any event, without the new more expensive models and the slightly less elastic demand for them I would worry what it would cost to allocate the OEM's fixed costs over small volumes for only a replacement market that carries lower margins to start with. I may not have every detail precisely right, but that was what I was thinking.

9B

The evidence is really undeniable. What has been driving the 18m and open class, is the perception that the bigger spanned classes are far superior than what they in fact are.

The 15m other sailplane builders still have no answer to the Diana-2. Maybe the Duckhawk is an answer - we'll see. Diana-2 has sold poorly IMHO, because of perception.

Maybe we should replace wingspan with wing aspect ratio, when looking at the layout. The Diana-2 and now the Duckhawk, for me, seem to indicate that this is the more important metric. In these two designs, the low weight is used advantageously in an aerodynamic sense to produce a larger aspect ration wing with a smaller wing areas, than would otherwise be practical.

Wing profiles today, show little differences from one to the other.

In the analysis, it should be noted, that the EB29 can be flown in a 25.3M configuration, reaching about 58kg/m wing loading.

On paper the larger ships should have been faster, but they're not. So we are not taking everything into consideration.

Speculating here, does it take longer to accelerate a long spanned ship, due to the higher profile drag, through sink or upon thermal exit? If so, they would be flying slower than the smaller ships through sink.

One point that I think has been missed is that I believe the open class was
tasked with longer tasks than the other classes during the WGC. That would
make their final glide a smaller percentage of their entire flight - which
would make their overall speed a bit slower that it would be if they flew
the same length tasks that the 15m and 18m ships flew.

Also, I image the difference in speeds would be greater at a soaring site
with weaker lift than found in Uvalde. The 21m and 23m ships and their high
wing loadings seem tailor made to Uvalde's very strong soaring conditions.

Paul Remde

In the recent edition of AeroKurier, there is an article describing the increasing flight path length associated with a stronger variation of the speed in an ASW-27.

From memory, in the example they gave, increasing the speed from 160KM/h to 180KM/H just through the modeled sink area, increases the flight path by up to 4%. But it is still faster over the horizontal distance, as 180 is the optimal speed for that example.

I assume the same is true in lift (increased flight path due to pull up).

This gets me thinking that in order to vary the speed of a heavier ship, which zooms up 300feet on pull up, that this increases the total flight path over that of a lighter ship which zooms up less and slows down faster.

I have a hunch the higher profile drag requires a stronger push over, over that of a shorter spanned plane, increasing the flight path due to this or causing a slower speed gain.

It would be interesting to compare the effects of 1) longer flight paths,or 2) less speed changes, or 3) slower speed changes - of heavy, long winged ships to a baseline ASW-27.