On Jan 10, 4:46*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:

that huge shock absorbing wheel. Derek Pigott thinks its the ideal early
solo glider. *Its a little go-cart of a glider that feels really light
and handleable after a K.21 - much the same as I hear about the 1-26.

They sound nice! Don't know that there are many in the States. With
the Euro & Dollar situation, we CERTAINLY cannot afford to import
anything right now! :-P

per year free in the club ships to make that happen. Maybe a similar
allowance would get your ball rolling too?

Right now CFIGs and Tow Pilots are pretty much "free" of all fees,
though I think they do have to pay for solo (non instructional)
tows.

We introduced a booking scheme to deal with that. Students can book a
K.21 for half a day, which guarantees at least a half share of the
glider and instructor. Part of the deal is that they must be there to

Yeah I'm working on something similar via an online calendar system on
our site. It won't be a "binding reservation system" for all gliders
(members are howling about past failed experiments with that) - but I
do want to try to restrict training to specific hours and only 2
students per instructor per day, to increase the quality of
instruction and frequency of flights (rather than 5 or 6 students
showing up and overloading 1 CFIG).

Was that intended as an early solo glider? How does its performance and
handling compare with a Junior?

The 1-36 is _not_ a great first ship. Its not horrible; but its
aileron performance is very poor at low speed (every Schweizer is
different, ours is apparently worse than average), and it has a LOT of
weight on the tail. The short fuselage makes it prone to PIOs on
takeoff (though I didn't have a problem with it myself, I can see how
people would).

Ah, but have you asked the students? If its as viceless as a K21 and

Hahah, ASK-21? We use Blanik L-13s and 23s. We have no glass 2-
seaters. :-( There was a donated DG-1000, but it was designated for
"advanced training" by the foundation that manages it (they want to
use it as collateral for a potential airfield purchase at some point
in the future). Then they required pilots to have their Silver Badge
before they could use it. And now its basically being paid for by a
syndicate (a club within the club) of about 14 pilots. *sigh* No one
else can use it...

That's not so silly. The land-out requirement is sort of equivalent to
having out Bronze with XC endorsement. Out Juniors are usually rigged,
but the higher performance club gliders are often kept in their trailers
* on the grounds that anybody going XC in them must know how to rig and
de-rig them.

Right, and part of a ground checkout for our gliders is to be able to
(at the very least) talk your way through a rig/derig of the glider in
question. But a 1-26 is not the most convenient glider to physically
de-rig in a field and trailer back to the airport. Would be nicer to
use our Apis or something similar if we *do* have that requirement, so
that it wasn't such a big ordeal to make it happen.

Thanks a bunch, Martin... The more info, the better!

--Noel