Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian[_2_]
On 07/07/2018 00:59, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Schleicher and Schempp have a long history of making great gliders. Jonkers has started that tradition too, however they have only produced a handful of gliders compared to the other two listed.
The Jonkers started out with the aim of building a world class 18m ship.
In the upcoming world championships 17 out of 46 in the 18m class are
Jonkers so I guess they have achieved that.
I would have thought that competing with a 21m glider against 28m
gliders would be like taking a knife to gun fight. But 17 out of 32
entries in open class are JS1c's. That's over 50% of the entries! They
have changed the nature of open class.
Then there are 5 out of 37 JS3's in the just started 15m championship.
They were placed 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 12th yesterday.
Of course there are no Jonkers gliders in the club class! Most of the
club class fleet were built when the Jonker brothers were still at school.
What is surprising about their achievement, is not that they have
designed and built world competitive gliders, not that they are
competitive in 3 different classes. But the speed with which they have
managed to progress from drawing board (computer) to prototype to
production and certification.
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I bought my JS1C with 18 and 21m spans. I've owned an ASW27B, ASG29, and this JS. The JS is the best fit and finish- hands down. 7 hours on the engine and all for fun! I've flown it 200 hours now and wings are beautiful. Both my 27 and 29 developed spar bumps. One glitch on delivery and that was the FLARM was set up for Europe. Won't go into the issues that I had with the 29, but they weren't bad enough that they swore me off AS. I just ordered an ASG32Mi as a second ship, but if JS had a two-place 20m, well, the decision might have been tougher!