Coming from SGS and Blanik glider experience, the rudder pedals in a PW-6 seem "stiff" to me. 1.Are the rudder pedals in a PW-5 likewise stiff? 2.Is the stiffness a design shortcoming or a feature? Does the stiffness have any purpose? Do some people prefer this feel?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/9162444733/in/photostream/

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/pilot-killed-in-glider-plane-crash-near-embro-1.1426274 http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2013/08/25/21073751.html

I fly in New England and staying up in the air is challenging on the majority of "flyable days". Every so often, we get a booming day (like today) and I commonly end up saying (and I hear other pilots saying), "It was so easy to stay up, I got bored." So what happens when a pilot who is used to...

Mostly Vermont. 44 days in 2013 and twice more if I'm lucky.

http://i.imgur.com/jn0MRxe.jpg Farrenberg Airfield Germany

I got a quote from Blanik America in June of 2012 of $1800 for a factory authorized complete kit-of-parts to add a nose hook to an L33. I did not get a quote for installation labor. The L33 is a metal glider and perhaps that would make the installation less labor intensive. Does anyone know the...

Like many pilots, I try to be extremely cool and rational when I'm flying a glider and (such as it is)I enjoy my technical mastery of soaring, and I enjoy the companionable and endless discussion of technical detail on the ground. But I fly in eastern-scale 'mountains', often below the ridge...

From AOPA: "In December, AOPA members Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Indiana), a member of the House General Aviation Caucus, and GA Caucus Co-Chair Sam Graves (R-Missouri) introduced the General Aviation Pilot Protection Act or (GAPPA). Under GAPPA, pilots who make noncommercial VFR flights in aircraft...

An important but difficult question to answer is "How well did I sleep last night?" It would be nice to have some objective measure of that other than "clock time" because sleep quality varies. I've been experimenting with an Ipod Touch App that uses the accelerometer to log my "tossing and...

This is probably common knowledge for some, but it caught my club by surprise. It is easy prevent this damage by replacing the canopy cable before it fails. The cable that limits the canopy movement when the canopy is open failed. The canopy flopped over and slammed into the horizontal tube that...

So how many of us have flown along close to cloudbase under a cloud street, and suddenly seen another glider pass us on the opposite heading? It's obviously hard to see a glider that is coming straight at you. So what about a narrow beam LED strobe aligned with the glide path vector... would the...

So the competition pilots like PowerFlarm and the glitches are being worked out. The second wave of deployment will come at clubs and glider ports that have a lot of gliders in the pattern and close by terrain features that concentrate traffic. What about the rest of us? The third wave? I fly...

I've had great fun flying an SGS 1-26 in New England. What's a 1-26 like in the stronger conditions that are more typical 'out west' (say Moriarty New Mexico). I'd especially like to hear from anyone who has flown the 1-26 both east and west USA. I've kept the 1-26 up for nice long flights close...

I'm looking for someplace in the USA to get dual instruction in a glider that has flaps. (yet another reason to regret the grounding of the L-13s)

A 2012 VW Golf is rated to tow 3000 lbs in Europe and 1000 lbs in the USA. Why? I'd expect that a Golf towing a 1800 lb trailer at 60 mph would be no problem, until I had a wreck and the insurance company tried to deny my claim. Here's a guy towing an AirStream trailer with a Golf...

There are a few old horror stories about taking your parachute on a commercial flight. Anyone have good/bad experience with TSA in the last year or so?

I'm not alarmist to say that the FAA is going to ground 80% of the senescent USA glider training fleet sometime soon. The only question is when. The L-13s are being recycled. The few people who know how to properly inspect and keep the 27 wooden Schleichers KA-* gliders flying safely are...

I was talking to a big fan of motocross about a 13 year old who became a quadriplegic after a motocross accident. What is the difference between an adult consenting to taking the risks of flying and a parent assuming those risks for a child? My dad let me do plenty of dangerous stuff when I was a...

Taser equipped drone, coming to a dystopia near you http://gizmodo.com/meet-cupid-the-drone-that-will-shoot-you-with-an-80-00-1539064715