On 12/3/2010 10:28 AM, jb92563 wrote:
There are a few Experimental Gliders with great performance bang for
the buck and are great performers.

Snip...

The Schreder HP Experimentals are a great buy. I bought my 40+ year
old HP-11 for $6,000 with a good trailer.
It's had 9 owners and they have completed Diamonds etc in them.
Its all metal and I leave it outside rigged in the blistering CA sun
and occasional rain, year round and its virtually maintenance free. L/
D ~37:1

Its durable and learning Flaps is easy and less scary than you have
heard and gives you capabilities to exceed your best expectations,
with flap assisted slow thermalling and reflex flaps for top end
speed. and full flaps to get in to incredibly small postage stamp
sized fields. I now prefer flaps to spoilers alone and I think most
people would too if they gave it a try.

"I'll second the above." Usta own/fly an HP-14, transitioned into 'flapped
high performance' ships from a 1-26 w. ~125 total PIC hours w/o problems (the
HP being the 2nd of 3 flaps-only 'higher performance types' ever self-owned).

Regardless of what you eventually decide, FWIW, just about *all* of the advice
you've received in this thread has merit, IMHO. Yet another fascinating aspect
of this wonderful sporting activity!

Have fun - searching and soaring!

Regards,
Bob W.