Performance World Class design proposal

On the copy of fuselages - it IS a fairly perfect copy. I have quite some
hours in Pégase (which I like), ASW19 and ASW20.

You're right that the prices of new sailplanes do skyrocket. However, it
might not have been rocket science to make a 40/1 glider with 15m span, but
then pushing the performance towards 50/1 with 15m means more and more
development work for just another extra point (and, you need to switch to
carbon/kevlar fibers which do have another price tag).
I'm not ready to pay for this extra point (because at the end of the day,
someone has to pay for that work plus a mark-up) but appearently there are a
lot of customers out there who are ready to pay for it. These customers sell
there 10-15 years old ships to pay for the new one, and the second hand
market in Europe is fairly large.

I don't think that this is the reason for a decline in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase - without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Michel Talon" a écrit dans le message de
...
Bert Willing wrote:
Well, the fuselage is a perfect copy, the wing planform is a perfect
copy,
the structure is a suboptimal copy and the airfoil is a new (and
definitively better) development.


The Pegase fuselage looks like the ASW20 fuselage but not the point of
being a perfect copy, i don't think so. All fuselages of this period
look the same.

So with all these copies and the French government paying for the
airfoil -

The same as universities paying for airfoil development everywhere in
the world.

no wonder why the selling price of a Pégase is fairly interesting if you
don't need amortization.

And even though development cost was low, pricing was interesting and
marketing was largely supported by FFVV subventions, Centrair went bust.
Now
if you can't make money under these conditions, how to make money if you
have to pay for engineering ?!


As i said Centrair is not an exemple of an efficient business, and this
was un understatement. Even RS who had an extremely successfull glider,
the LS4, went bust. There is no limit to the amount of money incompetent
and greedy managers can throw through the windows, just take a look at
Messier and Vivendi.

But of course, that's all the fault of German manufacturers...


German manufacturers have done wonderful job, i will not discuss that.
What they are completely unable is keeping the prices under control.
Each and every successfull business has to focus on keeping prices
under control, even Daimler-Benz and BMW have done great efforts in this
direction and are able to deliver cars at reasonable price considering
the quality and performance of their products. There is absolutely
nothing anti german in what i am saying, i am only criticizing the
german glider manufacturers for their unability in stabilizing prices.
My salary has not augmented the last ten years, basically, i don't see
a single reason why a glider price should augment in the same time
frame. But in fact they have more than doubled. I am quite sure that the
salaries of the workers doing the job are as stagnant as my own. Hence
the problem is the vast inefficiency in the leadership of these
businesses, exactly the same inefficiency you very rightly criticize at
Centrair. Sorry to say that but building gliders is not a place to make
money, if you want to become billionaire, you better sell toothbrushes.







--

Michel TALON

I don't think that this is the reason for a decline
in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs
to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase
- without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...

How do you define your 'Personal performance limit'?
And why do you need to acheive this before you buy
a better glider?

As has been touched on, the cost increase certainly
is effected by research and develpment - a well known
expensive area that shows no immediate profits. However,
without this R+D we would still be faffing around in
Prefects. There is plenty of choice for gliders in
all price ranges, if someone wants to buy a brand new
D2 then let them. Similarly, if someone wants to buy
a k6, then let them. I do not see what is wrong with
spending the money you work for on something that is
important to you. Regardless of how much it is. And
to be honest, regardless of how good you are.


Owain

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 16:18:37 +0000 (UTC),
(Michel Talon) wrote:


German manufacturers have done wonderful job, i will not discuss that.
What they are completely unable is keeping the prices under control.

Well... unfortunately aviation business seems to result in a fairly
expensive product if a certain level of quality and reliability needs
to be achieved.
Looking at the price list for a Cirrus SR20 or even the 60-year-old
design Cessna 182S I get the desire to cry.

Or take a look at the prices for the great Lak gliders - they are not
that far below comparable German designs although I'd bet that the
wages are 80 percent lower there.



Bye
Andreas

Owain Walters wrote:

How do you define your 'Personal performance limit'?
And why do you need to acheive this before you buy
a better glider?

I've been using sink rate at 80 knots as a metric for a while.

SGS 1-26 700
AC-4 500
LS-4 320
ASW-20 300
PIK-20B 280
ASH-25 220

And it looks like the

square of 700 49
------------- = -- = ~5
square of 300 9

So an ASW-20 costs about 5 x what an SGS 1-26 costs.

Blanik L-13 550
PZL PW-5 500
DG-100 375
Grob 102 CS 360
Grob 103 350
Libelle 201b 350
SGS 1-35 321
Cirrus Open 318
Pegasus 101A 270

It seems to me that the low perf. trainers are in the 700 range,
medium performance and non-retract are in the 500 range,
and higher performance in the 300 range.

And from what I've seen, a lot of even fairly experienced soaring
pilots are pretty happy with anything better than 300fpm sink
at 80 knots. Well, some will insist on ballast and flaps at that
point too, but a lot seem ok 300fpm sink.
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Mark,
A most thoughtful metric.
It might lead to a very interesting way of valueing the gider market as
opposed to $perL/D.
This might be a way to determine various cut off points for gliders under
consideration.
Have you extended the reasoning to other aspects?
Cheers!, Pete
"Mark James Boyd" wrote in message
news:413ce507$1@darkstar...
Owain Walters wrote:

How do you define your 'Personal performance limit'?
And why do you need to acheive this before you buy
a better glider?

I've been using sink rate at 80 knots as a metric for a while.

SGS 1-26 700
AC-4 500
LS-4 320
ASW-20 300
PIK-20B 280
ASH-25 220

And it looks like the

square of 700 49
------------- = -- = ~5
square of 300 9

So an ASW-20 costs about 5 x what an SGS 1-26 costs.

Blanik L-13 550
PZL PW-5 500
DG-100 375
Grob 102 CS 360
Grob 103 350
Libelle 201b 350
SGS 1-35 321
Cirrus Open 318
Pegasus 101A 270

It seems to me that the low perf. trainers are in the 700 range,
medium performance and non-retract are in the 500 range,
and higher performance in the 300 range.

And from what I've seen, a lot of even fairly experienced soaring
pilots are pretty happy with anything better than 300fpm sink
at 80 knots. Well, some will insist on ballast and flaps at that
point too, but a lot seem ok 300fpm sink.
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Pete Reinhart wrote:
Mark,
A most thoughtful metric.
It might lead to a very interesting way of valueing the gider market as
opposed to $perL/D.
This might be a way to determine various cut off points for gliders under
consideration.
Have you extended the reasoning to other aspects?
Cheers!, Pete


The only other really good metric I think might be useful is the
insurance rate for the glider. This takes into account the
safety/training cost aspect of a glider. It seems PIKs are
undervalued, and the LS-4 overvalued, without this metric.
I can't really think of a more useful metric for encompassing
a lot of different factors.

And insurance quotes are pretty easy to get. So it wouldn't
be a lot of trouble to get a list. And hey, if the bean
counters think it's accurate, then maybe it is...

Insurance cost seems to cover a lot of otherwise intangibles, like
cost of getting replacement parts, too...

Beyond this metric, I dunno what else is a good summary.

P.S. I also prefer to use handicap squared instead of straight handicap
to compare performances in racing results, but I don't think this
is what you meant :P

"Mark James Boyd" wrote in message
news:413ce507$1@darkstar...
Owain Walters wrote:

How do you define your 'Personal performance limit'?
And why do you need to acheive this before you buy
a better glider?

I've been using sink rate at 80 knots as a metric for a while.

SGS 1-26 700
AC-4 500
LS-4 320
ASW-20 300
PIK-20B 280
ASH-25 220

And it looks like the

square of 700 49
------------- = -- = ~5
square of 300 9

So an ASW-20 costs about 5 x what an SGS 1-26 costs.

Blanik L-13 550
PZL PW-5 500
DG-100 375
Grob 102 CS 360
Grob 103 350
Libelle 201b 350
SGS 1-35 321
Cirrus Open 318
Pegasus 101A 270

It seems to me that the low perf. trainers are in the 700 range,
medium performance and non-retract are in the 500 range,
and higher performance in the 300 range.

And from what I've seen, a lot of even fairly experienced soaring
pilots are pretty happy with anything better than 300fpm sink
at 80 knots. Well, some will insist on ballast and flaps at that
point too, but a lot seem ok 300fpm sink.
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA




--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

I've reached my personal performance limit in a glider when I am sure that
on a certain day I would have gone further with a better glider. Where I fly
(French & Swiss Alps) this hasn't happened yet because there are many more
factors than just the glider performance.

That doesn't mean that I disregard people who buy a better glider even
though this don't stretch their legs - everybody spends his money for his
toys as it pleases him, there is nothing wrong with one pilot buying a
L-Spatz (or a 1-26 for those on the strange side of the pond :-), and the
other one buying a Ventus2cx.

If it's coming to club fleets, that's where the cost of gliders is important
(a private owner anyways better don't think about $ per hour :-)). There are
clubs out there, especially in Germany, which operate many latest model
fleets for reasonable prices, but that doesn't hold for every place.

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"Owain Walters" a écrit
dans le message de ...

I don't think that this is the reason for a decline
in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs
to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase
- without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...

How do you define your 'Personal performance limit'?
And why do you need to acheive this before you buy
a better glider?

As has been touched on, the cost increase certainly
is effected by research and develpment - a well known
expensive area that shows no immediate profits. However,
without this R+D we would still be faffing around in
Prefects. There is plenty of choice for gliders in
all price ranges, if someone wants to buy a brand new
D2 then let them. Similarly, if someone wants to buy
a k6, then let them. I do not see what is wrong with
spending the money you work for on something that is
important to you. Regardless of how much it is. And
to be honest, regardless of how good you are.


Owain

Bert Willing wrote:

I'm not ready to pay for this extra point (because at the end of the day,
someone has to pay for that work plus a mark-up) but appearently there are a
lot of customers out there who are ready to pay for it. These customers sell
there 10-15 years old ships to pay for the new one, and the second hand
market in Europe is fairly large.


Yes, you are right. The best solution by far at present for someone who
wants to buy a glider is to buy a second hand one in the category of
the LS4, Pegase and so on, or an ASW20 or similar if he wants a flapped
glider and is reasonably confident in his piloting abilities.


I don't think that this is the reason for a decline in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase - without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...


I agree 100%, however one must not neglect the fact that the clubs have
to renew their fleet to counter depreciation. To come back to
generalities, it is impossible that the prices keep going up like they
are doing, the system will hit a wall fast.


--

Michel TALON

In article ,
"Pete Reinhart" wrote:

Mark,
A most thoughtful metric.
It might lead to a very interesting way of valueing the gider market as
opposed to $perL/D.

Of course this is just L/D at 80 knots, with his 300 fpm cutoff being
an L/D of about 26.6:1 and an LS4 being 25:1.

It appears that you need (-ve) flaps to get as low as 300 fpm, but then
there are lots of missing interesting gliders. The Discus and ASW28 may
prove me wrong, for example.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

Bert Willing wrote:
On the copy of fuselages - it IS a fairly perfect copy. I have quite some
hours in Pégase (which I like), ASW19 and ASW20.

You're right that the prices of new sailplanes do skyrocket. However, it
might not have been rocket science to make a 40/1 glider with 15m span, but
then pushing the performance towards 50/1 with 15m means more and more
development work for just another extra point (and, you need to switch to
carbon/kevlar fibers which do have another price tag).
I'm not ready to pay for this extra point (because at the end of the day,
someone has to pay for that work plus a mark-up) but appearently there are a
lot of customers out there who are ready to pay for it. These customers sell
there 10-15 years old ships to pay for the new one, and the second hand
market in Europe is fairly large.

I don't think that this is the reason for a decline in soaring - it's rather
the attitude of many a club member who thinks he needs to fly an ASW27
instead of an ASW20, or a Discus2 instead of a Pégase - without having ever
reached a personal performance limit on a Pégase...

Touche Bert

I fully plan to trade my 1971 Std Cirrus in the moment I am a better pilot than
it is a glider...

May take a looong time.