On Sep 1, 5:06 am, Dan G wrote:
Imagine a club in a fairly wet (24" rain a year) temperate climate,
which doesn't have a hangar. What gliders and tugs could they use,
which would be able to survive living outside all year round? I'm
thinking both two-seat trainers (Blaniks?) and single-seaters, and
tugs that could operate off a grass strip (I can't think of a tug that
doesn't need a hangar :-s).

Dan

Here in the US, I'd say that the majority of glider operations have
tow aircraft which spend either most or all of their lives outside.
This includes the usual assortment of aircraft from Pawnees, to Super
Cubs, Citabrias, Scouts... you name it. If you think about it, any
of the aircraft originally built as agricultural sprayers (e.g. the
Pawnee) were not given pampered treatment at any point in their lives
- most of them flew from jobsite to jobsite all spring and summer.
The downside of outdoor storage is that paint and fabric will clearly
have a shorter lifespan than a ship that lives inside. You'll also
have to deal with some amount of insidious corrosion that you might
not otherwise face. But, it's pretty easy to account for more
maintenance work and more frequent recovers in your budgeting
process.

In terms of gliders, almost any glider port you visit here will have
an assortment of Schweizers tied out. These are tube and fabric or
aluminum skinned ships, so the same issues of paint and fabric
apply. There are also some airframe issues directly related to
exposure, such as the longerons on the bottom of the fuselage which
may be subject to corrosion if water sits in the fuselage. We also
have some operations that have glass ships (especially Grobs and
K-21s) tied out, many of them in harsh desert climates. It's
obviously not great - many of these ships are extensively crazed and
pretty grungy looking. But, in a place where hangar space may be
prohibitively expensive, it is often cheaper to live with a refininish
every 10 years than to pay for indoor storage.

I haven't had great experience with Grob 103s in terms of daily
assembly. Perhaps if your club is in a position to assemble once on
Saturday and disassemble on Sunday, it might work out. A Duo, on
the other hand, seems to go together much more easily. The key is
having a few people who REALLY know what they're doing and to have all
of the right stands and rigging aids.

Erik Mann