On Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:07:47 -0700 (PDT), Bruce Hoult
wrote:


Note that that is now, not in 1995 when we bought our PW5s.

How deep is that market? What if 100 people join gliding tomorrow and
want to buy gliders? How about 1000?

Since this question is completely fictional, this question doesn't
really matter, does it?


We paid about 25000 DM for our PW5s. That is a lot less than the 35000
DM you give, not to mention the 45000 for a used LS-4 today.

The PW-5 was offered for quite precisely 37.000 DM here in Germany
(one design criteria was that it ought to have been 30.000 DM at
maximum, which they couldn't hold). At that time we sold our ASW-20L
for 42.000 and our Twin 2 for 50.000 DM.



Surely the PW5 is not sufficiently worse than the Russia, or any other
entrant in that design contest, to make the chosen glider the reason
for failure? At the very least, you would have needed a completely
different set of goals for the design contest.

Not completely different, but specifications that would have made the
World Class glider attractive to clubs in countries where the biggest
market is (Germany, austria, Switzerland, GB, Netherlands).

This would have meant an LD of about 40, a fixed gear, automatic
control hookups (let's call this a fixed-gear LS-4) and would haqve
created a world-class trainer glider.
By completely ignoring this market the World Class never had a chance.


But in fact I think the main reason the World Class is a failure as a
competition class is due to the general world-wide decline of gliding.

I beg to differ.
It's always the same problem: Why should someone fly a (butt-ugly)
glider that offers the performance of the mid-1950s?

I don't know how things are on your side of the pond, but in many
European regions an L/D of about 40 is simply necessary to do some
serious XC flying (and make the glider in question attractive). You
are not going to find many gliders with an LD of less than 40 in
European clubs these days anymore.


Had the sport grown, as I'm sure we would all like, there would not be
enough used LS-4's, Discuses or even ASK6's to go around, at any
price. The advantage of a new glider, such as the PW5, is that as many
could be manufactured as required to meet demand, with prices probably
decreasing as a result.

I guess we've been through this discussion quite often now.

Unfortunately the sport didn't grow.
First step would have been to get new glider pilots, who then would
have created a demand for new gliders.


People don't seem to appreciate how very inexpensive the PW5 was when
it was introduced (and would I think have remained given more demand).

It was NOT inexpensive. It was always more expensive than most
used-gliders, yet offered significantly less performance.

Check the current SSA classifieds:
There's a PW-5 for sale for an amazing 28.000$. Same price as you had
to pay if you bought both the Libelle and the ASW-15 that are for
sale. Paying twice the money to buy something with a huge performance
penalty?