No doubt that the insurance premium on a more expensive glider is greater
but insurance is a fixed cost. Divide the premium by the yearly hours to
get hourly insurance costs. The most expensive glider to insure on an
hourly basis is the one that doesn't get flown much. I know a guy who owns
a 1-26 and flies it maybe twice a year. His hourly insurance rate must be
$200/hr.

A popular high performance trainer may well have a low hourly insurance
costs. An ugly, low performance trainer may have a higher hourly insruance
rate if the nice one gets flown more.

The really huge advantage of modern high performance trainers is that they
attract new members and keep the old ones. I offer two examples: The
Philadelphia Soaring Council and the Soaring Society of Boulder - there are
many more. There is a very good case to be made for operating really nice
equipment.

On the other hand, it's not hard to find clubs who have reduced their
equipment and insurance costs to the minimum and, in the process, reduced
their membership to the minimum. They are related.

On a slightly different tack, if a club mandates solo in old, cheap
equipment, that says they don't trust the new member students or their
instructors. If a club can't trust its instructors, it has a far worse
problem than the training gliders.

Bill Daniels


"Roy Bourgeois" wrote in message
...


Are you saying a K-21 or a DG 505 are not insurable for student pilots? I
think they are. The K21 is a VERY robust glider and a great trainer - so
is
the 505.

Bill Daniels

Bill: Both are excellent gliders - and probably anything is insurable at
some price. My point is that you cannot look at the issue of "training"
without examining both the cost involved in the acquisition and insuring
of your "trainers" and what type of training you are going to use them
for. To make an extreme example, how many 2-33s can we buy and insure for
the cost of one 505? How many clubs are going to use their shiny new
$100K
asset for a 15 year old's first solo? Clubs make these decisions all of
the time and I have seen over and over with many clubs that the high
performance "trainer" is never used for ab initio training if a lesser
performing (and cheaper) 2-place is available. Examples: Sugarbush has
both
ASK-21s and Blaniks but first solo training is always on the Blanik. SS
Boulder has a 505 and a G-103 but first solo training is on the G103.
Franconia has a G-103 and a 2-33 but teaches and solos on the Schweizer.
I
could give 10 more examples. This is frequently driven by insurance
requirements.

I agree with your comments that High Performance gliders are no more
difficult to fly than low performance (although there are some differences
in teaching on them). But as somebody who is very concerned with the high
entry cost to our sport (I am the CFI in charge of my club's youth
program)
I see the financial "downside" of the higher performance trainers. The
truth is, every training glider decision is a mix of cost, performance,
maintenance issues, repairability, modernity, staff instructor comfort,
and
relationship to what else is in the fleet. Depending on how you assign
values to those factors - you can "make a case" for almost anything.

Roy