In article ,
Walt Connelly wrote:

John, thank you for the input. I have spent a lot of time at the glider
port
I frequent and have helped a number of people assemble their gliders.
Even the easiest seem to run into major snags. Perhaps the latest, high
performance and high priced glass ships can be truly assembled by one
person and in short time, my experience this far has been that it is at
least a two man and 30 minute or more operation. I timed one particular
assembly which ran into a few snags and it seems this is the norm. I
appreciate your response.

What type of gliders are they? From what I've seen, there's enormous
variation in how easy they can be to assemble. For that matter, there's
pretty big variation from one pilot to another. Practice and experience
make a lot of difference.

If there isn't too much wind, I can take my ASW-20 from zero to
ready-to-fly (including things that you'd have to do for a tied-down
glider too, like preflighting and putting in batteries) in about half an
hour without any help. If I had a better one-man rigger I could do that
in wind too. If there is wind, or I'm just in a hurry and help is
convenient, I can take advantage of a second person for about two
minutes to get the wings in, and do the rest by myself. I don't think
I've ever hit any sort of major snag. The way the thing goes together,
there's just no room for the "push one wing in, push one wing out" game
that some gliders like to play, and getting everything lined up never
takes more than a minute or two.

When I started flying I was afraid of the idea of buying something that
I'd have to assemble and disassemble each day. But with what I have now,
it's absolutely not a problem at all. There's a good side to assembling
and disassembling too, which is that when I'm out on course somewhere
and get low, I don't start to wonder if the trailer is good, if I still
remember how to take the thing apart, where all my tools are, etc. I
just assembled the thing a few hours ago, and disassembled it after my
previous flight, so I know I'm good to go.

Some gliders, like mine, go together with incredible ease even for the
clumsy. Some are hard if you're out of practice, but easy when you know
the tricks. Some are just plain hard. Avoid the ones that are hard, be
skeptical of the ones that need practice, but in your place, I'd
consider the easy ones (with good trailers too!) right along the ones
you can tie out.

Obviously I'm just one guy and your mileage may vary. Good luck with
your search, whatever you may choose!

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon