Yurek wrote:
...
The difficulty we have in our sweet France is, that government is
trying to push some companies (like Centrair) and this kind of
protection does not make entreprises stronger. It makes them even
weaker, and when the protection stops, they disappear. Centrair
stopped the production of gliders, because this company didn't have
good stuff, nor a good commercial behavior and was unable to sell
without special help (like a bulk order of the French Gliding
Federation) . Novaday they are subcontractors of Airbus, and I hope
they will perform better...
In the same time, a really excellent French construction, which is
Crystal, took 10 years to be certified ! Commercially speaking, it is
dead before to be born...
20 years earlier, you could see the same situation, when the French
administration pushed forward the construction of Wassmers Bijave
against the Breguets Choucas... with the same kind of result.
...

Opinions about the government sponsoring gliding and glider manufcturers
may be debated, but in my opinion one thing is sure : if we didn't
have this sponsoring in the past, France would certainly not be among
the 3 countries (with Germany and USA) where the number of glider pilots
exceeds (barely in France) 10000. The case of the USA is atypical,
considering the population the number is small. And in Germany the sponsoring
is much older, even if it stopped earlier, the trend it triggered is
much more important.

I don't think the commercial behaviour of Centrair had an incidence
on the end of production of gliders, but the lack of innovation and
performance improvement certainly was a factor, as the market for new
gliders is mainly lead by top competitors who are ready to put a lot
of money in a glider provided it gives a better chance to win.

Considering the choice of the Bijave, I agree it was a poor choice
when compared to Breguet, but the cost of Breguet was much higher
and the purpose of the sponsoring was to encourage cheap flying,
much more Bijave than Choucas could be buyed with this sponsoring.
Anyway it is well known the decision was based on political lobbying
and neither on performance nor on cost :-(