"Tony" wrote in message ...
As far as I can tell a high performance competitive sailplane has
always cost about the same as a house. Sort of like a new Corvette.

When people ask me how much gliders cost I usually say "as much as you
want to spend".

Usually anywhere from $2500 to $250,000 will do the job.

I usually say, it is like sail boats. You can have a lot of fun sailing a dingy and a lot of fun racing in the America Cup. Fun is fun and it is not necessarily proportional to the value of boat you are sailing. The same is true in the world of soaring. I fly a HP-14 which I purchased for $6,500 (I have invested about $3,000 in up-grades over the years) and it provides me a great dead of fun and is within my recreation budget.

Wayne
HP-14 "6F"
http://tinyurl.com/N990-6F