"Tim Mara" wrote in message
...
can you say the word "homely" ?
again.....part of the reasons that many people have been drawn to soaring,
especially those who have joined the ranks from general aviation, is the
slick beautiful lines of (most) sailplanes....We can "visualize" ourselves
transformed into the same heroic and stunning figure as our machine we
then
occupy...
Part of, (IMHO) the lack of success and mixed emotions toward some
sailplanes has been the novelty and shall I say "unique" appearance of
some......this is not a new phenomenon .it's not just the PW5's, Russia's,
Genesis types (only to name a few)that have created such arguments, but
look
back at other failed designs over the past 30 years, I'm sure you'll see
plenty of other "novel" designs that never made a lasting impact or even
made it to the market.....
We all admit it or not, still look at lovely models, beautiful cars and ,
of
course sleek airplanes and let our emotions empty our pocket books a lot
quicker than we study the specifications sheets and make our decisions
from
excel comparisons and graphs..
tim


Tim's viewpoint is, as usual, insightful. However, esthetic values can
change over time. It seems that at some point after everyone agrees on what
is 'beautiful', that esthetic value becomes a little 'boring' and a new
esthetic arises. I'm sure that the wooden, gull winged pre-WWII gliders
were (and to me, still are) considered beautiful. Of course, a proven
contest winner has a beauty all its own quite independent of its geometry.

Where I object to these low performance gliders is that they fly in the face
of a century of soaring progress. They seem to say, "since we can't compete
with the fast guys, lets change the rules".

If I am to joust with the forces of nature over hostile terrain, I want all
the performance I can buy. Mother Nature just won't let you change her
rules.

Bill Daniels