At 10:06 29 April 2004, Mark Stevens wrote:
The K21 is quite hard to spin except when it's very
close to the rear CofG ..

From a training perspective the K21 is seen as a little
too benign by some UK instructors, although it's incredibly
tough as an airframe..

Twin Astirs tend to be a little fragile in the u/c
department for intensive ab-initio work, and they can
be hard work to soar in weak conditions..

My current favourite is the DG1000 which the guys at
Sutton Bank were happy to let me fly a few weeks ago
...

Mark


At 09:18 29 April 2004, Michel Talon wrote:
Mike Lindsay wrote:
In article , Ben Flewett
writes
I disagree with the statement regarding maintenance.
A fibreglass ship will always cost less to maintain
than a fabric over metal ship.

I don?t believe a K13 is move forgiving than a Twin
Astir or K21 for training purposes. And, in the unlikely
event of an accident I would rather be in a glass ship.

Isn't it rather difficult to get a K21 to spin? So
it must be next to
impossible to do spin training in the glass job?

An instructor asked me to do spin in a Janus. I can
assure you there is
no problem entering spin in a Janus, that speed builds
up quite fast,
and that you are happy to get out of spin as fast as
possible.
But you are right, the ASK13 is perfect for doing spin.
It demonstrates
spin much more clearly than the ASK21! However, and
contrarily to what
has been stated above by our UK friends, here in France
people have
generally sold all their ASK13 to buy replacement ASK21
or Twin Astirs
(at least those who were rich enough). Is it true that
the K13 allows
to stay in the air in weak conditions when plastic
gilders cannot?
Sincerely i doubt that, particularly if there is the
lightest wind, you
will be out of luck, while with a Janus for example,
you can still go
against the wind and use flaps in light thermals.


--

Michel TALON





At my club we still retain a K-13 for spin training
as our K-21's are almost impossible to spin. We checked
with the BGA some time ago and they confirmed that
it is a requirement to undergo full spin training prior
to solo. We also explored the possibility of using
the spin kit (tail weights) as supplied with one of
our K-21's. We got no-where with this in regards certification,
manuals etc. However we're getting a DG-1000 and so
we will then sell the K-13. It will be sad to see it
go; we've crunched it around since 1968 and it's still
going strong. Many of our instructors still prefer
to instruct in it. Provided you do in house maintainance
on the cheap with club members then your costs are
lower. One thing we are finding is the size of your
average pilot has grown since 1968 and 40% don't fit
in it. We operate alongside Vikings (Grob Acro) and
they are a fine trainer although the undercarriage
is not as strong as either the K-13 or K-21.