On Feb 3, 8:57*am, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
The situation begs the wider questions, where do we get new glider
pilots if trainers become so scarce and expensive? If we let the cost
of soaring instruction rise with the burdened price of training
gliders, who will want to even start? Do we let the commercial,
consumerist, invisible hand of the marketplace sweep our sport from
the sky? Or is there some legitimate way to subvert the laws of supply
and demand?

www.retroplane.net/forum/download.php?id=496

What if they had based the design on the K13, rather than the K18?
I've spent the last 5 years designing a low cost winch (yes, I'm slow,
but I'm almost ready to cut metal, really), and am acutely aware of
the fact that there aren't a lot of decent low cost training gliders
left to go along with our winch...

Marc