Schweizer 1-26 question

Gee this is almost a trolling question ... but I will take it seriously -- yes, you can have a lot of fun in a 1-26. How much fun you will have depends on your attitude ... and also where you soar.

They are NOT a good sailplane anywhere the winds are strong; you sure don't go upwind well in a 1-26, nor penetrate through sink. This means that some of the "best" soaring areas in the American Southwest are actually pretty scary in a 1-26. They are well suited to areas where the conditions are milder -- they climb well in weak lift.

There's a common 1-26 joke that goes "Flying a 1-26 is great, you meet so many nice new farming friends! " 1-26s do land off-field very well.

Another inexpensive glider to consider is the Ka-6 ... better performance than a 1-26 -- it is wood and fabric and requires more care and better storage.

Before this thread dies I do want to mention one of the greatest all-time flights in a 1-26 I know of ... George Hanke flew a 1-26 from Saratoga NY (5B2) across MA and out to Martha's Vineyard! He circled the airport there, came back to the mainland, flew back west to where GBSC flew back in that day (IIRC, not Sterling where they fly today), landed, stayed overnight.

And the next day he took a tow and flew it back to Saratoga!

Adjusting for the realities of Northeast soaring that's mind-boggling, given being able to bring it home (upwind) the next day.

Getting one's diamonds in a 1-26 is doable, but yes ... a feat. A great deal of it is the feat of persistence, planning, and being ready to go when the conditions are right.

The hard one is the distance. There are basically two strategies -- out east it's pretty easy along the Appalachian ridges.

Out west you wait for a post-cold-frontal day with a decent wind ... and do the "vulgar down wind dash." Even 20 kts of wind on your tail changes the whole picture for a 1-26, and with any sort of luck you get some streeting too.

Problem is ... somebody will need to drive 600 miles RT to get you. (This assumes you are not George Hanke with his luck, too.) And you will probably not succeed on the first try.

Anyone who has done this has good friends or family.

My biggest issue was the need for an, "iron butt" for long time flights. My best contribution is a fair amount of 1-26 time (couple hundred hours before moving up to a 1-34 and beyond) and doing most of my badges from a single airport in SE NYS. Above silver C, most were done in glass though.

I have flown with Ron S. many times over the years, he is definitely an eastern mentor for 1-26 flying along with others from ACA.......

I think some time in a 1-26 is good before moving up. Partly, you fly a TON of thermals, helps you to look at the ground and sky to find the next lift, if you don't, you will likely land.

While others say training in glass is the way, I still think doing lower performance to learn the basics, then move up is a better way.
You have to learn to find and work lift all the time before stretching your legs, glass makes it easier to go further on most days.

I own a Discus B, and call me crazy, but I still like flying 1-26s, and also not to hijack the thread ... a Ka-6. ... and right now I am refabricing and overhauling my Ka-6CR

Part of this goes back to me flying 1-26s in the Elsinore/Hemet valley in the early 70's, when i was a young pilot -- learned a great deal, they are a lot of fun to fly, and the Elsinore/Hemet valley is almost ideal conditions for them.

I think the biggest value of a 1-26 today is that YOU WILL LAND OFF-FIELD. Cross-country soaring is basically impossible until you get comfortable with the idea that you WILL land off-field ... unless you get up into the 18+ m classes of gliders with sustainers, etc.

If you can't land a 1-26 in a field ... nothing else will get you in there! And they are inexpensive, easy to fix.

The truth of the matter is that when I fly the Discus I am more worried about off-field landings, even though it is insured, and I really do know how to fly it. I don't have the sense of "no worries" that I have in a 1-26. The Discus can do so much more, goes so much farther and faster ... and I sure know how to land it. But the kind of thing that worries me with an expensive glass sailplane is the post or piece of junk in a field you don't spot -- that damage in a 1-26 is a no-big-crisis to fix, and the properly-repaired 1-26 is "good as new," equally valuable.

A big ding in a wing or much worse yet a broken fuselage (unfortunately common in glass sailplanes if you catch a wing or ground loop) is a major repair, expensive, and the glider will be substantially depreciated even though the repair is covered by insurance. A broken rear fuselage repair can add a lot of weight ... on two-seaters like the Grob-103 you often see used ones with damage-repair where the weight added is so much that it isn't really a usable two-seater anymore! This kind of thing leaves you nervous when you fly a glass-bird cross-country, and contemplate truly landing out. This is why a lot of glass-drivers fly a rigid landing-site list ... but then that can have its problems where you are gliding low off to that site on your list, and either you don't make it or get there and it's not landable.

Another point is that a 1-26 can be landed on a two-lane road, and usually you cannot get away with that in a 15 m glider. Usually this is only relevant out in the desert, where there are lots of 2-lane roads with zero traffic, and not much else to land on.

Having said all this, I like a Ka-6 more than a 1-26 ... and that's why I own one ... but the comparison is mixed. Ka-6s are cheap and a lot of fun to fly; out-perform a 1-26 and have a lot of class ... and are easy to repair if need be. But they are wood and fabric, take more storage care than a 1-26.