On 31 Jan 2005 09:24:22 -0800, wrote:


At the same time the
German sailplane industry is killing this sport. Plain and simple. Do
you know that LS-8 made by DG nowadays cost 65000 Euros?

How many 65.000 Euro gliders have been sold and how many 25.000$
(PW-5, Russia, et cetera)? The low-priced gliders are a very minor
fraction.

If raw prices of the gliders were what was killing the sport,
low-priced gliders would be selling a lot more units than they
actually do. But they don't.


Maybe in
Germany everybody is rich and they can afford this type of prices but
here in the U.S.....many people making just about 30,000 U.S. Dollars a
year...in some states like Montana or the Dakotas even less....and just
because of the income does this make those guys or gals less qualified
pilots?

The explanation has been mentioned a lot of times now:
CLUBS. WINCH LAUNCHING.

It's very hard to spend more than $1.000 in Germany per year for
gliding if you choose to stick to club gliders. In fact, in my club
(and most other clubs in Germany) it's a lot cheaper.

Not to mention that usually you are buying used gliders here if you
decided to have an own one. An ASW-15 costs 15.000 Euros including a
re-finishing that makes it as good as new. There is absolutely no need
to buy a new 65.000 Euros glider - for 20.000 you get an ASW-20, for
example.


No, but if the Germans will become more realistic and adjust
the prices to the world level maybe we would have more pilots and those
factories could sell more sailplanes...
It's not a question of being realistic - it's a question of sheer
production cost and quality.


and then maybe we could see
that pilots with lower income, which translates directly to what they
fly, will prove that is not the amount of money but the pilot
skills...

Fly club class - and look which gliders are dominating there. The hot
gliders for club class due to their Index are Libelles... 8.000 Euros
per piece here. Any questions left?


BTW: Most of the really active members in German clubs are students
with really low income.



Bye
Andreas