I flew an ASH26e for 2 seasons and now have a V3M which matches its advertised climb rate of 630fpm with its 62hp fuel injected Solo engine taking off from 360ft msl. The 26e with the carb engine got around 500pm so I surprised me to hear the the 26Mi, with a lower power engine than my V3M, will manage 800fpm from sea level. 800fpm seems an extraordinary increase.

The 26e is a lovely glider and the engine is, of course, much quieter smoother than 2 cylinder 2-strokes but the rotary engine is too vulnerable to catastrophic internal damage if anything goes wrong with the marginal at the best of times rotor air cooling and the internal oil misting. The saying about self launching glider IC engines is - "with the Solo you will probably get lots of relatively small problems, with the rotary you'll get fewer problems but when you do it could be a very big one". There are certainly a few replaced rotaries in gliders that I know of and that is a big bill. I had the fan belt fall off and the engine rotor air rapidly overheat but got away with it.