wrote:
I have read many posts about how gliders like the PW5, L33, and other
similar performance gliders are not the greatest cross country gliders
and that for the same money you can get older higher performance
gliders. My question is, if you forget about dollars per L/D, do
these type of gliders have enough performance to not cause frustration
in the beginner cross country pilot? Another question is, would the
avg pilot be satisfied with these for a few years or would most really
get the itch to trade sooner?

Thanks
Oh my. Did you *mean* to start another religious war?

The one word answer to your question, "do [PW5, L33, and other similar
performance] type of gliders have enough performance to not cause
frustration in the beginner cross country pilot?" is "Yes."

A slightly longer answer is, "Yes,but...the devil is in the details."
Details such as 'who' Joe Pilot as a person is, where/terrain-over-which
s/he soars, personal goals (short term ones aren't necessarily long[er]
term ones), who Joe Pilot will become after a few seasons of seasoning.
Naysayers will be happy to cite Chapter and Verse (complete with
charts and graphs) 'proving' their view is correct *and* the only one of
any real value. Lowlifes such as 1-26 drivers (WARNING: dry humor
nearby!!!), may beg to differ.

As to your question:
would the
avg pilot be satisfied with these for a few years or would most really
get the itch to trade sooner?

that - to me - is unanswerable, so ripe as it is with imponderables,
'plicit' (e.g. 'avg pilot,' 'few years,' 'itch to trade sooner') and
implicit.

Writing as one who's followed the 1-26-'high-performance 15-meter' path
(at a time your intermediate-performance-referenced gliders didn't
exist), I never felt (and don't now feel) any of my glider time was
wasted or misdirected. I've learned valuable lessons from each ship
type flown - & flew/fly every single seater XC (that being what I most
enjoy). I learned the basics of safe XC in 1-26s, and enjoyed every
second (including the frustrating, stuck becuzza insuffient L/D ones!).

IMHO, a valid argument can be made lower/intermediate performance ships
permit/encourage/make-necessary the (relatively low-stress/cost)
accumulation of off-field assessment/landing skills, which (unarguably,
in my view) are things every wannabe XC soaring pilot needs. I've seen
a whole lot more people enter (and leave) the sport for reasons related
to insufficient XC skills (e.g. fear, accident cost [imagined and
real]), than I have enter & leave for insufficient ship performance
reasons. At the (very real) risk of erring through oversimplification,
when the hassle of retrieves grows wearisome, is as good an indicator as
any of an individual's growing off-field competency and 'readiness' for
a longer-legged ship. Sure, there's an obvious paradox/contradiction
there, but would you rather ding a lowish-dollar toy, or a
faster-landing, higher-energy, considerably more expensive toy, due to
off-field ignorance and general inexperience? Make no mistake - the
potential for 'dings' is part of transferring 'book XC knowledge' into
'actual XC knowledge.' Safe XC is a matter of identifying (ideally,
beforehand), and learning to effectively deal with stresses (not fully
comprehensible until experienced as solo PIC).

Quoting from some unremembered Greek soaring pilot: "Soaring Pilot -
know thyself!"

Any ship purchased in such light will serve you and your needs well.
Should your druthers change through experience, any such ship can be
resold for pretty much what you paid for it (so long as you've been a
good steward of it).

Have fun along the way!

Regards,
Bob - with but one fabric 1-26 'ding' to my OFL credit - W.