Re: LS10 info

[[email protected]]

Here is a quote from the DG/LS web site...it is, in my humble opinion,
worrisome statement :

Economic aspects

Everyone knows that the approved certification of new models becomes
more and more expensive and the number of production planes will never
reach the quantities of the past.

The cost for developing the LS-10 will definitely be more than 500.000
Euros. This requires precise planning for a business like DG, to keep
the whole process at the lowest cost. This planning which we are doing
at this time will take much more time than we expected when we bought
LS.

End quote.

O'K.... the way I read this statement is, that gliders will be more and
more expensive and eventually this sport will be so expensive that only
very few and very rich people will be able to afford it. It is almost
identical to unlimited hydroplanes....during the 50's and 60's there
was a lots of boats, then we had a guy, who basically bought the sport
and in the 21st century this sport almost seized to exist. We are
flying nowadays old gliders. When I go to the glider port I see people
flying 20 and 30 + years old birds. Eventually those gliders will be
scraped. So, having said that, did anyone at this point in time thought
about what are we going to be flying 10 years from now? DG/LS is
selling gliders for $100 000 +....keep this in mind; a glider which
cost 57,000 Euros...that translates to about $70,000 US. Then you need
to buy a trailer, instruments, ship it across the Atlantic, pay your
taxes in your state. By the time you are done it is a $100,000 US + .
Do you think this kind of prices will attract new glider owners? Also,
at this time I think that SZD Bielsko gliders, LAK gliders, PW-5 and
PW-6, APIS, and some other manufacturers will not follow the
greedy/getting quickly rich/ rip you off business approach and they
will maintain the reasonable prices on the equipment they manufacture
presently. If they fall into the same category as the German
manufacturers then this, or I should say, our sport is in a danger of
extinction. With prices like that I think I'll buy me a Pitts again
and have quite a bit of fun as well. That is a price range that is
encroaching in "the good power range pricing".

[Chris Reed]

wrote:
> We are
> flying nowadays old gliders. When I go to the glider port I see people
> flying 20 and 30 + years old birds. Eventually those gliders will be
> scraped. So, having said that, did anyone at this point in time thought
> about what are we going to be flying 10 years from now?

In 10 years time I still hope to be flying my Open Cirrus. It will then
be 48 years old, but I can't see any reason why it should deteriorate
and be scrapped unless I break it. Admittedly I don't think it's capable
of flying a 750k in UK conditions (no water ballast), but then I'm
certainly not, even if the glider can. 500k is on, and I'll be trying
this year.

This seems to be true of nearly all the "old" glass gliders I see.

I've only been in the sport a decade, but I think from my reading that
the current "hot" ship has almost always cost substantially more than
the national average wage in a developed country, so the current prices
don't seem to have risen dramatically in real terms.

Top competition pilots and the very rich buy them, and in time they
trickle down to the rest of us.

[1MoClimb]

All of Jacek's arguments have been made before in this forum. In a
free economy a company puts the products on the market it thinks will
sell and asks a price that has to be at cost plus margin. If other
companies feel they can do better, they'll go and try doing that.
Bashing DG for price and currency situations is doing nothing to change
the basics.
Thankfully for Jacek and others, there are those of us who want to fly
these new machines (see my raised hand?) and will trade up to them at a
much smaller differential cost than what the whole new machine would
be. Then our current gliders will refresh and rejuvenate the market
and make someone else real happy.
I encourage DG to press on with their good work and look forward to the
day when I can put my LS8-18 up for sale with a spankin' new ship on
the ocean.

Herb, J7

wrote:
> Here is a quote from the DG/LS web site...it is, in my humble opinion,
> worrisome statement :
>
> Economic aspects
>
> Everyone knows that the approved certification of new models becomes
> more and more expensive and the number of production planes will never
> reach the quantities of the past.
>
> The cost for developing the LS-10 will definitely be more than 500.000
> Euros. This requires precise planning for a business like DG, to keep
> the whole process at the lowest cost. This planning which we are doing
> at this time will take much more time than we expected when we bought
> LS.
>
> End quote.
>
> O'K.... the way I read this statement is, that gliders will be more and
> more expensive and eventually this sport will be so expensive that only
> very few and very rich people will be able to afford it. It is almost
> identical to unlimited hydroplanes....during the 50's and 60's there
> was a lots of boats, then we had a guy, who basically bought the sport
> and in the 21st century this sport almost seized to exist. We are
> flying nowadays old gliders. When I go to the glider port I see people
> flying 20 and 30 + years old birds. Eventually those gliders will be
> scraped. So, having said that, did anyone at this point in time thought
> about what are we going to be flying 10 years from now? DG/LS is
> selling gliders for $100 000 +....keep this in mind; a glider which
> cost 57,000 Euros...that translates to about $70,000 US. Then you need
> to buy a trailer, instruments, ship it across the Atlantic, pay your
> taxes in your state. By the time you are done it is a $100,000 US + .
> Do you think this kind of prices will attract new glider owners? Also,
> at this time I think that SZD Bielsko gliders, LAK gliders, PW-5 and
> PW-6, APIS, and some other manufacturers will not follow the
> greedy/getting quickly rich/ rip you off business approach and they
> will maintain the reasonable prices on the equipment they manufacture
> presently. If they fall into the same category as the German
> manufacturers then this, or I should say, our sport is in a danger of
> extinction. With prices like that I think I'll buy me a Pitts again
> and have quite a bit of fun as well. That is a price range that is
> encroaching in "the good power range pricing".

[bumper]

Gonna revert to something cheap like a Pitts, huh?

Have a look at http://www.aviataircraft.com/aircraft/s1t.htm
A new S1-S starts at $250,000.00 USD. A new Husky A1-B is over $200K. Sure,
some of these are readily available for less on the used market, but still
the new aircraft remain expensive. I'm not defending these prices, though
there are a myriad number of reasons why they ain't cheap.

bumper
Minden, NV

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Here is a quote from the DG/LS web site...it is, in my humble opinion,
> worrisome statement :
>
> Economic aspects
>
> Everyone knows that the approved certification of new models becomes
> more and more expensive and the number of production planes will never
> reach the quantities of the past.
>
> The cost for developing the LS-10 will definitely be more than 500.000
> Euros. This requires precise planning for a business like DG, to keep
> the whole process at the lowest cost. This planning which we are doing
> at this time will take much more time than we expected when we bought
> LS.
>
> End quote.
>
> O'K.... the way I read this statement is, that gliders will be more and
> more expensive and eventually this sport will be so expensive that only
> very few and very rich people will be able to afford it. It is almost
> identical to unlimited hydroplanes....during the 50's and 60's there
> was a lots of boats, then we had a guy, who basically bought the sport
> and in the 21st century this sport almost seized to exist. We are
> flying nowadays old gliders. When I go to the glider port I see people
> flying 20 and 30 + years old birds. Eventually those gliders will be
> scraped. So, having said that, did anyone at this point in time thought
> about what are we going to be flying 10 years from now? DG/LS is
> selling gliders for $100 000 +....keep this in mind; a glider which
> cost 57,000 Euros...that translates to about $70,000 US. Then you need
> to buy a trailer, instruments, ship it across the Atlantic, pay your
> taxes in your state. By the time you are done it is a $100,000 US + .
> Do you think this kind of prices will attract new glider owners? Also,
> at this time I think that SZD Bielsko gliders, LAK gliders, PW-5 and
> PW-6, APIS, and some other manufacturers will not follow the
> greedy/getting quickly rich/ rip you off business approach and they
> will maintain the reasonable prices on the equipment they manufacture
> presently. If they fall into the same category as the German
> manufacturers then this, or I should say, our sport is in a danger of
> extinction. With prices like that I think I'll buy me a Pitts again
> and have quite a bit of fun as well. That is a price range that is
> encroaching in "the good power range pricing".
>

[J. N.]

I don`t think you`re right.

In fact, if you take a look at the inflation, gliders have become
cheaper, or equally priced compared to 1980.

So the whole problem isn`t about more expensive gliders but less glider
pilots which mean less sold, which means a larger penalty per glider
for development. Thát`s the problem.

http://www.lak-deutschland.de/lak/PDF/Preisliste1-2004.PDF

Seems considerable less that a DG, AS or SH ;-)

[Michel Talon]

J. N. > wrote:
> I don`t think you`re right.
>
> In fact, if you take a look at the inflation, gliders have become
> cheaper, or equally priced compared to 1980.
>

You must be kidding, i think. I remember a time when a glider was
worth one third or one fourth the price of a house, now it is close
to the price of a house, hence a very unreasonable buy. You are saying
there are less buyers, there is a very good explanation to that.

--

Michel TALON

[Michel Talon]

"W.J. \(Bill\) Dean \(U.K.\)." > wrote:
> Gosh, where can I buy a house for the price of a new glider. Or did you
> just mean ETA?
>

Not in United Kingdom, for sure. In more reasonable places and sufficiently
far from cities, yes.


--

Michel TALON

[Bert Willing]

In rural France, maybe... but then, who wants a house there :-)

For an estimation of the "real price" of a glider, real estate is not of
much help. If you compare it to the mean of yearly gross income, you will
find that gliders haven't become that much more expensive.

And anyhow, looking at 2-years+ delivery times, these prices don't seem to
be a big problem to a significant number of pilots.

And the others - like me - just buy second hand.

"Michel Talon" > wrote in message
...
> "W.J. \(Bill\) Dean \(U.K.\)." > wrote:
>> Gosh, where can I buy a house for the price of a new glider. Or did you
>> just mean ETA?
>>
>
> Not in United Kingdom, for sure. In more reasonable places and
> sufficiently
> far from cities, yes.
>
>
> --
>
> Michel TALON
>

[Andreas Maurer]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 16:03:24 +0100, "Bert Willing"
> wrote:

>In rural France, maybe... but then, who wants a house there :-)

if you define "rural" as St. Auban, Sisteron or Barcelonette...

scnr




Bye
Andreas

[Bob Kuykendall]

Earlier, wrote:

> Here is a quote from the DG/LS web site...it is, in my humble opinion,
> worrisome statement :
>
> ...
>
> The cost for developing the LS-10 will definitely be more than 500.000
> Euros. This requires precise planning...

Well, that's for a large company heavily ballasted with business
overhead and strong European-style employment protection. A
low-overhead operation like mine, developing towards certification
under the US amateur-built experimental rules, can undercut that
substantially and still offer performance, quality, and amenities
similar to the European racers.

And we probably will. At the ADF III last week we laid up and closed
the first real fuselage. We're still on track to meet our $17500 Y2K
base kit price, balanced for oil and inflation.

Unfortunately, with oil more than doubling those year 2000 dollars are
now worth about $25000. And with Boeing and Airbus buying all the
carbon fiber the world can make, it'll be some time before the carbon
market returns to something like normal. And worse, our schedule is
slipping towards 2007.

But we'll keep plugging at it. We'll make another fuselage in the next
few weeks, and then we'll get all gooey with the wing plugs to make the
wing molds.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24

[Michel Talon]

Bert Willing > wrote:
> In rural France, maybe... but then, who wants a house there :-)
>

A lot of brits apparently :-)

> For an estimation of the "real price" of a glider, real estate is not of
> much help. If you compare it to the mean of yearly gross income, you will
> find that gliders haven't become that much more expensive.

Income of whom, exactly? If of drug dealers, perhaps, yes. If of honest
civil servants, then salary is straight the same as ten years ago and
gliders are twice as expensive.

> And anyhow, looking at 2-years+ delivery times, these prices don't seem to
> be a big problem to a significant number of pilots.

So significant that many glider manufacturers went belly up. Let's be serious,
gliders have become out of reach for almost anybody here.


--

Michel TALON

[Eric Greenwell]

J. N. wrote:
> I don`t think you`re right.
>
> In fact, if you take a look at the inflation, gliders have become
> cheaper, or equally priced compared to 1980.
>
> So the whole problem isn`t about more expensive gliders but less glider
> pilots which mean less sold, which means a larger penalty per glider
> for development. Thát`s the problem.

I bought a new ASW 20 C in 1984, which cost me about $28,000 US. This
was during a period of a strong dollar. Using the $100,000 US figure for
a new ASW 27, that's 3.6 times more, or an average of ~6% inflation a
year. I don't know what's it's really been, but that sounds about right.
I have to agree that the price is comparable to 22 years ago. I think
that is remarkable, because '84 was a period of a strong dollar (vs the
Mark), and now is a period of a relatively weak dollar (vs the Euro).

For the US, the results of this calculation will depend a lot on when
you do it, due to the substantial currency variations. In the 30 years
I've been in the sport, I've seen gliders become very cheap twice.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

[[email protected]]

Slightly OT:

Bob, I applaud your effort, and wish you the best of luck with the
Hp-24. However - I'll never buy one, unfortunately, no matter how
inexpensive and high performance it turns out, because I have
absolutely NO interest in a kit. I want to fly, not build. And I've
got a sneaky suspicion that the majority of pilots in the market for
high performance gliders feel the same way.

I do hope I'm wrong - I'd love to race against a nice shiny new hp-24
some day soon!

Kirk

[Shawn]

Chris Reed wrote:

> I've only been in the sport a decade, but I think from my reading that
> the current "hot" ship has almost always cost substantially more than
> the national average wage in a developed country, so the current prices
> don't seem to have risen dramatically in real terms.

I have the original purchase records for my Mosquito (the original
owners didn't throw anything away):
$25,000 in June of 78. That's $75-$100k in 2006 dollars depending on
how you calculate inflation.
For an *almost* 40:1 ship with a tube trailer and oldtech instruments.
What's changed more is salaries of the masses, in the US at least. For
lots of reasons, average real wages have dropped for thirty years.
Schempp-Hirth and Schleicher can't influence that much. Of course,
given the economic (and potential political) status of glider pilots,
they could have some influence in growing the sport, rather indirectly.
Hmm "Vote Glider, Vote Democrat in 2008" I like it!

Shawn

[J. N.]

It takes a lot of labor to produce a glider, and labor has become more
expensive. So the traditional manufacturers are struggling while new
ones are producing considerable cheaper gliders in countries where
labor is a lot cheaper. (What would a Lak-17A be, about 65.000 euro`s
ready to fly?)
If the prices would have been the problem I think everyone was flying
those ugly Peewee`s. And they`re not.

Stop blaming the manufacturers for the low value of the dollar. Why not
start a sailplane manufacturer in the US of A, labor is cheap over
there isn`t it?

[Bruce]

Michel Talon wrote:
> Bert Willing > wrote:
>
>>In rural France, maybe... but then, who wants a house there :-)
>>
>
>
> A lot of brits apparently :-)
>
>
>>For an estimation of the "real price" of a glider, real estate is not of
>>much help. If you compare it to the mean of yearly gross income, you will
>>find that gliders haven't become that much more expensive.
>
>
> Income of whom, exactly? If of drug dealers, perhaps, yes. If of honest
> civil servants, then salary is straight the same as ten years ago and
> gliders are twice as expensive.
>
>
>>And anyhow, looking at 2-years+ delivery times, these prices don't seem to
>>be a big problem to a significant number of pilots.
>
>
> So significant that many glider manufacturers went belly up. Let's be serious,
> gliders have become out of reach for almost anybody here.
>
>
I just had my wife's first car refurbished. She is irrationally fond of it, so
the money is well spent.

Some observations - her "mom's taxi" is a high tech airbag equipped 7 seater
with more processing power than the moon lander. An Opel Zafira, it is nothing
special in the school parking lot.

Now her concourse 1976 1275cc Mini GTS with it's 12" rims and 58kw motor, and
leather upholstery DOES stand out in the same car park. It has been returned to
better than original, at a cost of > 10x it's original purchase price. The mini
was a popular moms taxi when I was at school. Compared to the house prices of
the time, I suppose the comparison is similar. Both the car and glider are
vastly more sophisticated and more expensive. The house is also vastly more
expensive, but it has changed a lot less relatively.

So - I get to drive a 1970 revision of a 1950s design, that in a nutshell
equates to the comparison between my Std Cirrus and a new Ventus 2Cx.

The modern vehicle is an imense advance over the 35 year old, irrespective of
the condition. And yes, I have an enormous amount of cheap fun in both the mini
and the Cirrus too...


--
Bruce Greeff
Std Cirrus #57
I'm no-T at the address above.

[Shawn]

J. N. wrote:
> It takes a lot of labor to produce a glider, and labor has become more
> expensive. So the traditional manufacturers are struggling while new
> ones are producing considerable cheaper gliders in countries where
> labor is a lot cheaper. (What would a Lak-17A be, about 65.000 euro`s
> ready to fly?)
> If the prices would have been the problem I think everyone was flying
> those ugly Peewee`s. And they`re not.
>
> Stop blaming the manufacturers for the low value of the dollar. Why not
> start a sailplane manufacturer in the US of A, labor is cheap over
> there isn`t it?
>
Ford just announced 30,000 jobs cut. I think you're right!

Shawn

[Bob Kuykendall]

Earlier, wrote:

> Slightly OT:
>
> Bob, I applaud your effort, and wish you the best of luck with the
> Hp-24. However - I'll never buy one, unfortunately, no matter how
> inexpensive and high performance it turns out, because I have
> absolutely NO interest in a kit. I want to fly, not build. And I've
> got a sneaky suspicion that the majority of pilots in the market for
> high performance gliders feel the same way.
>
> I do hope I'm wrong - I'd love to race against a nice shiny new hp-24
> some day soon!

Nothing wrong with that point of view; you're probably in the majority
of sailplane pilots in that regard, and I respect it completely.

However, I'd observe that what we're talking about is a matter of
degree. There's kits and then there's kits. When it comes right down to
it, the glider you are flying right now is probably a kit - you do have
to get the wings out of the trailer and put them together, right? So
there must be some sort of threshold value of "kittishness" that you
won't cross, and it sounds like you draw the line at well under an hour
of assembly. That's fine, but still a far cry from "never."

And it's worth noting that the kit glider I'm developing, like most of
the current crop of kit sailplanes, bears almost zero resemblance with
the kits of the 1960's and 1970's or even 1990's. What you get is a
complete fuselage shell, with the right and left halves already bonded
togther. The top and bottom wing skins come pre-assembled, with the
spar installed. There's still a lot of work for the builder, but the
major part of it is systems installation and bonding together
pre-indexed parts. I figure that it'd run on the order of 350 hours or
so, maybe less. That's still a bunch of time, but it is less time (and
much less finnicky work) than it takes to refinish an old ASW-20.

I prefer to think of it like IKEA furniture; it's not really a kit,
there's just some assembly required...

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24

[[email protected]]

Lots of good comments about relative prices of gliders and personal
incomes now and in the past. It's a mix of currency flutuations (we've
been whipsawed in both directions in the U.S.), inflation, the high
proportion of labor in manufacturing costs, etc. It's hard to blame the
manufacturers. Their order books are full. And the marketplace seems to
be working the way it should: i.e., weaker or high-cost manufacturers
exit and new and/or lower-cost makers enter.

A few other factors that I think have changed:

1. Avionics: my instrument panels 30 years ago were full race...with an
altimeter, airspeed, compass, a couple of variometers, an audio, a
radio, and a cardboard final glide calculator. Today one vario is an
expensive flight computer driving a PDA. And now (at the competitive
level) you need at least one IGC-approved flight recorder (read: low
volume, high price).

2. Time: in the "old days," most of us had much more time to save money
through do-it-yourself, ranging from building your own glider to
building a trailer to (in my case) building a couple of RST radios.
Forget that; I don't even have time to do the wing smoothing and other
tweaking I used to do. I'm lucky to be able to fly every few weekends
if the weather is good.

3. Joint ownership: at least in the U.S., I believe there is far more
reluctance to own a competition glider with one or more partners. The
first Libelle 301 I ever saw was owned by three pilots in the midwest
(including one Wil Schuemann). Many guys had partners, the lucky ones
having found someone with absolutely no interest in contest flying. The
easiest way to cut the cost of a glider in half then and now is sharing
the cost. But it seems that a lot more of us (myself included, I'll
admit) are so stressed for time and uncertain about our schedules that
we choose to go it alone (because of my work, I typically "lock in" on
a contest for sure the week before, including the nationals).

I'm also curious as to the relative price of used gliders vs. personal
income. My family was always able to sell one glider for more than we
paid to help finance the next one, whether we were selling a glider we
bought new or used. Unlike what is still true for real estate, that
seems extremely unlikely to happen this time (if I am ever able to
afford/justify a new glider). Much of it is due to currency swings, I
think. But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
inflation and/or personal income?

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

[[email protected]]

Bob,

Interesting comparison, but you will have a real hard time convincing
me my nice old LS6 is a "kit" just because I rig it every time I fly
it. Using that definition, everything that has any maintenance done on
it is a "kit". From my perspective, I see a lot of difference between
rigging my wings and building them!

But an "A" for originality and effort, nevertheless!

And I know there are a lot of people out there who will jump in and
build a kit - especially one that sounds as complete and well
engineered as the hp-24. But those people also take a lot of pride in
building something with their own hands. And I have no problem with
kit furniture. But no way can I see myself building a kit glider. As
another poster has beautifully pointed out - I just don't have the time
anymore - too many other things to do when I'm not flying!

Cheers,

Kirk

[Marc Ramsey]

wrote:
> And now (at the competitive level) you need at least one IGC-approved
> flight recorder (read: low volume, high price).

No, you do not need an IGC-approved flight recorder to compete in most
countries. In the US, you only need one if you want US Team points, a
$100 Garmin handheld is fine, otherwise.

> 3. Joint ownership: at least in the U.S., I believe there is far more
> reluctance to own a competition glider with one or more partners. The
> first Libelle 301 I ever saw was owned by three pilots in the midwest
> (including one Wil Schuemann). Many guys had partners, the lucky ones
> having found someone with absolutely no interest in contest flying. The
> easiest way to cut the cost of a glider in half then and now is sharing
> the cost. But it seems that a lot more of us (myself included, I'll
> admit) are so stressed for time and uncertain about our schedules that
> we choose to go it alone (because of my work, I typically "lock in" on
> a contest for sure the week before, including the nationals).

Having jointly owned a number of gliders, I have to say that the savings
are not quite as much as they might seem. The single biggest
non-capital cost for most of us is insurance, and insuring a glider for
two costs 1.6 to 1.7 times insuring it for one. Maintenance costs are
also higher, since it gets flown more. The primary advantage, to me, of
joint ownership is the reduction in the amount of hard cash I have
invested in a toy.

> I'm also curious as to the relative price of used gliders vs. personal
> income. My family was always able to sell one glider for more than we
> paid to help finance the next one, whether we were selling a glider we
> bought new or used. Unlike what is still true for real estate, that
> seems extremely unlikely to happen this time (if I am ever able to
> afford/justify a new glider). Much of it is due to currency swings, I
> think. But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
> say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
> inflation and/or personal income?

Any such calculation has too many fluctuating variables to be useful. I
suspect that as long as one has a perceived completive German made
glider in hand, it is possible to flip it for the latest and greatest
every five years or so at a relatively small (10%?) incremental cost.
If you have anything else, you are subject to the whims of the
marketplace...

Marc

[Tony Verhulst]

>>In fact, if you take a look at the inflation, gliders have become
>>cheaper, or equally priced compared to 1980.
>
> You must be kidding, i think. I remember a time when a glider was
> worth one third or one fourth the price of a house, now it is close
> to the price of a house.....

Not where I live (Boston Massachusetts area). The "fixer-upper" 4 houses
from me sold for US$370K 6 months ago. The house I bought for US60K in
'79 has been appraised at approx $450K. My salary in that same time
frame has increased by a factor of 8 (same industry). From where I
stand, J.N. has it about right.

Tony V.
hppt://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/SOARING

[Wallace Berry]

In article . com>,
wrote:

> Bob,
>
> Interesting comparison, but you will have a real hard time convincing
> me my nice old LS6 is a "kit" just because I rig it every time I fly
> it. Using that definition, everything that has any maintenance done on
> it is a "kit". From my perspective, I see a lot of difference between
> rigging my wings and building them!
>
> But an "A" for originality and effort, nevertheless!
>
> And I know there are a lot of people out there who will jump in and
> build a kit - especially one that sounds as complete and well
> engineered as the hp-24. But those people also take a lot of pride in
> building something with their own hands. And I have no problem with
> kit furniture. But no way can I see myself building a kit glider. As
> another poster has beautifully pointed out - I just don't have the time
> anymore - too many other things to do when I'm not flying!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kirk
>

Every d**ned airplane I've ever owned has been a "kit" (even if if was
factory built and represented as "ready to fly").

[[email protected]]

>No, you do not need an IGC-approved flight recorder to compete in most
>countries. In the US, you only need one if you want US Team points, a
>$100 Garmin handheld is fine, otherwise.

True. You don't "need" a flight computer either, but it helps.
Practically speaking, it's also helpful to have a device that records
pressure altitude in a form acceptable to the rules. In the U.S., that
usually means an IGC-approved flight recorder. I used a Garmin handheld
as a backup this year and it downloads traces that overlay those from
my Cambridge GPS-NAV almost perfectly. But the altitudes recorded are
often enough different that I'd have occasionally busted the start
cylinder ceiling if flying the altimeter or given up several hundred
feet at the start if flying the Garmin. We can argue all day/all
night/all day/all night about whether we should switch over to GPS
altitude but until the rules makers agree, GPS receivers that have
pressure sensors (that don't recalibrate themselves automatically based
on GPS altitude) are highly useful. And they are an expense that
compares unfavorably to the Kodak Instamatic cameras I used for a long
time.

>Having jointly owned a number of gliders, I have to say that the savings
>are not quite as much as they might seem. The single biggest
>non-capital cost for most of us is insurance, and insuring a glider for
>two costs 1.6 to 1.7 times insuring it for one. Maintenance costs are
>also higher, since it gets flown more. The primary advantage, to me, of
>joint ownership is the reduction in the amount of hard cash I have
>invested in a toy.

I agree, based on my own experiences with joint ownership, although
until the premium for insuring two named pilots passes 100%, it's still
cheaper to share the cost. Hangar/tiedown/storage costs, annuals,
registration fees, etc., get split 50:50. I personally haven't noticed
that my maintenance costs vary much with hours flown, but I supposed
there are some items, such as trailer tires, for which it could be
true. Even for tires, batteries, and the big one--gel coat--though, age
seems a more typical criterion than hours flown.

Regardless, operating costs are probably not what prevents people from
buying a glider. It's ponying up $70,000 to $100,000, as you say,
that's the biggest hurdle. And joint ownership is a very effective way
of chopping that down to a smaller size.

>> But has anyone done any calculations to see how the prices of,
>> say, five- or ten- or twenty-year-old gliders have behaved vis-a-vis
>> inflation and/or personal income?

>Any such calculation has too many fluctuating variables to be useful. I
>suspect that as long as one has a perceived completive German made
>glider in hand, it is possible to flip it for the latest and greatest
>every five years or so at a relatively small (10%?) incremental cost.
>If you have anything else, you are subject to the whims of the
>marketplace...

Actually, I see very few pilots, even at the top, "flipping" gliders
every five years. The switching costs alone are pretty imposing
(freight, duty, insurance, and the time/expense to install new
instruments). And I think someone with an analytical bent could draw
some interesting conclusions from a study of used glider prices over
the years, perhaps comparing prices of previous generation sailplanes
of a certain age against new prices of the succeeding generation.
Multiple regression analysis has the ability to prove almost anything
if you add enough factors to a few data points but those with more
brainpower and time than I possess could doubtless tell us whether or
not gliders are still the great investment that my dad convinced my
mother they were back in the 1960s. :)

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

[Richard Brisbourne]

Michel Talon wrote:

> J. N. > wrote:
>> I don`t think you`re right.
>>
>> In fact, if you take a look at the inflation, gliders have become
>> cheaper, or equally priced compared to 1980.
>>
>
> You must be kidding, i think. I remember a time when a glider was
> worth one third or one fourth the price of a house, now it is close
> to the price of a house, hence a very unreasonable buy. You are saying
> there are less buyers, there is a very good explanation to that.
>

Funny, I recall the first time I flew a Kestrel 19 (around 1973 or '74), the
thought went through my mind that you could buy a house (albeit a
back-to-back terrace in an unfashionable part of Northern England) for what
the club paid for it. (Incidentally I now own one outright. Value is less
than a new family car).

The same house now (admittedly modernised a bit) will cost around 60% more
than the price of a new ASH-25, but in relation to salaries in the UK the
price of a new glider, from a Skylark 4 in 1962 through to a Ventus 2 today
hasn't changed that much.

This discussion comes up here from time to time, and is always confused
because it's international, and everyone's economy and currency develops at
different rates. Those who insist the game is getting more expensive
always quote two reasons:

1. Lower "real" incomes

2. Higher labour costs.

Think about it.



--
Real name is richard

[Michel Talon]

Richard Brisbourne > wrote:
> Those who insist the game is getting more expensive
> always quote two reasons:
>
> 1. Lower "real" incomes
>
> 2. Higher labour costs.
>
> Think about it.
>

Very insightful. I would add the fact that "real" incomes for some categories
has declined - for example professors, engineers (*) etc. namely the one most
susceptible to practice this sport, while the manual labor cost has augmented
dramatically, and especially in Germany. So i don't see a contradiction in
your argument, only the fact it is not the income and the costs of the same
persons.

(*) i remember when i was a student, IBM offered positions with far higher
salaries they offer now, without taking into account inflation! Secondary
school teachers who were then part of the "good society" in small towns are
now fully proletarized. Even brilliant students who envisioned careers in
research now fly away. In the same time plumbers carpenters and the like will
charge you a month of your salary for a day of their work and will ensure you
wait their appearance at least two or three months.

>
>

--

Michel TALON