On Fri, 10 Jan 2020 20:11:35 +0000, Michael Opitz wrote:

At 18:08 10 January 2020, Rob wrote:
I did not know that about Open Cirrus. I thought it was the same
cockpit.=
=20

It was interesting that a number of ships I tried that everyone was
certain=
I could fit in, I did fit just fine legroom-wise, but could not close
the
=
canopy.=20

I'm in the Houston area, and I have an airplane, so any excuse to
go fly
is=
very welcome. If anyone's got an Open Cirrus or Genesis 2 or
maybe Discus
=
2b or Nimbus, or prety much anything for a tall guy in area, I'd
love to
ch=
eck it out. What's for sale in the area?=20


I am 6'2" with a long torso (39" sitting height). I have had my
Discus-2b for 20 years now. I can sit in it - the rudder pedals pulled
back 2 notches with my legs still flat on the floor, a regular Strong
Paracushion-seat/back chute with the seat-back still installed and have
plenty of room. After having been crammed into various other top line
racing gliders (and at a competitive disadvantage due to comfort
factors), I have been extremely happy with my D-2b. Mike Westbrook has
one for sale in the DFW area. The only issue is that it is way above
your desired price point. V-2b has the same cockpit. When I visited S-H
to see the prototype D-2b, I told Tilo and Biggo my concerns about my
size. They just smiled and said that we should go try it on for size.
Once I sat in it and realized how much room I had, Tilo and Biggo said
that they had figured that it was time to build a cockpit that almost
anyone could fit into. That sold me.

I understand that the later Cirrus 76 (or
was it 75?) models have a larger cockpit.

I sat in one of those late Cirrii once - truly cavernous to sit in.

Another glider with a big cockpit is the 205 Club Libelle. It has a very
different fuselage to the other Libelles or the Mosquito, with a roomy
cockpit: it was designed to be a club hack, so designing in a big cockpit
was a good move. There's one in my club. It doesn't seem to give a lot
away in performance compared to the Standard Libelle: climbs well but a
little slower in a straight line. Its a nice, clean shape with really
nice fairing round the wing root and its owners like it. I don't know how
many, if any, there are in the USA.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org