No, I am not planning to buy anything for at least a year ... but I have often wondered what other "hidden" expenses or obstacles there are associated with buying a used glider. I regularly see older planes in the $10K USD range (which is well within my price range). BUT, for future reference,...

SZD Bielsko is in the final phase of testing of "new" 2 seat glider designed for initial and advanced training. It will be fully aerobatic with 17.5 m wings and with 20 m wings it becomes pretty good x-c sailplane with L/D of 41.8. The reason I am saying "new" with quotation marks is that the...

Hi, we recently launched a petition against Flarm decision to encrypt their communication protocols. Although Flarm have the majority of the market for anti-collision systems there are others vendors and we think that monopolies are not a good things in any market and more important security comes...

Lippmann in Germany reports a winch launch to 950 meters (3100'). http://www.lippmann.de/hoistline.htm Has anyone heard of a higher launch? Bill Daniels

Hello I have had my glider plans for approximatly 9 years now. My question is, does anyone know the Airfoil used by the Woodstock Glider? NACA ###? Thanks Herbie

All, I've just embarked on a project to extract US (CONUS) airspace data from the FAA National Airspace System Resource files and process it into more accessible formats (such as OpenAir and Tim Newport-Peace). This is a little more complicated than it sounds, because the NASR uses ESRI shapefile...

I have been very concerned about our club, which discourages cross country in club gliders. My thought is that purpose of soaring is cross country and if one just concentrates on flying above the airport then ones member ship tends to end when you have your license. We have many airports withing a...

Okay, neither my flight manual nor maintenance manual say what kind of fuses I should be using between the batteries and instruments. The printing on one looks to be T500L250V, which I understand to mean 0.5 amps, slow-blow, 250 Volts. (It's 5x20mm.) I know that to protect my wiring I need...

Hi all, for those interested in the status of the project, here is a video of current development point, new features etc. http://www.bware.it/xcsoar/LK8000-1.12b.wmv The public version will be available for free at Xmas time. At that point it will also an opensource project, of...

More bad news in a tough year. Heartfelt condolences to all involved. http://kezi.com/news/local/138726 Craig

Just got one of these Apple gizmos and I'm curious what apps other glider guiders are using. So far I've found some nice non-aviation weather and mapping apps, so now I'm looking for a good NOTAM and aviation wx brief app. How about SPOT, XCskies, DrJack? Kirk 66

Has anybody have a blanik not pass the wing inspection? We're just getting started and are interested in what others are experiencing. Thanks, Jim Dingess

I have a 1998 HK36TTC Katana Xtreme for sale. 115hp Rotax. All AD's completed. Custom Canopy cover. 225 hrs airframe and engine. Immaculate condition. In Australia, will containerise . Looking for A $180K, packed and ready to ship to USA. You won't find a better one. KLX135, Ilec vario, A-H,...

The original question stated a glider doing 100kts with/without 100kgs of ballast. Ignoring the stalling speed for the moment, Does anyone out there think the pull-up takes more than 4 or 5 seconds? Does anyone out there think that the sink rate of the unballasted glider at 100kts is more than...

Some of you know who I am and that I have not had a real sailplane since I sold my Ventus2CX a few years ago. I am still waiting for Flarms to be mandatory in all contests before I try to find a way back into competition. What I have been doing is flying my electric Lazair and RV8. A lot of you...

By all means a second battery should be installed in our electrically driven modern sailplanes. After many years of quickly flipping my 3-position battery switch, and trying not to have my logger to momentarily dropout, I have concluded that is best to use 2 single-pole battery switches. That way...

Rod Morris, a PW-6 private owner operating out of Invemere in the British Columbia Rocky Mountains, just messaged --- "With both kids now flying, the plane gets a great deal of use. Plus I have been allowing some junior club memebers and other pilots to get checked out on it so they can...

Those crafty Germans in their ginger bread, garden gnome workshops are building model sailplanes that blur the distinction between the real thing and RC models. Check this out: http://www.manfred-schadl.de/ASW15b%20gr%20a.jpg I was thinking of getting one of these for my 2 year old and...

Through the contributions to the avoiding VNE thread runs the theme of the difficulty of avoiding overspeeding and/or overstressing some modern designs in accidental spin recovery. This is made more difficult than in older composite gliders because they had a little more drag and a little more...

http://sailplane-racing.org/ Ken Kochanski SRA Secretary