If sanity prevailed John, this would not be R.A.S.

L13 was a great asset. Because it was REALLY cheap for what it was. I
regret that is likely to be a thing of the past now. Even if they get
them flying again the inspections will push the cost up substantially.

So I think we have to get past the denial and accept that the training
fleet just lost a LOT of primary trainers around the world. No matter
how low performance, or relatively uncomfortable - the L13 has been a
valuable part of the soaring fleet offering cheap, relatively robust
training at very low cost.

Problem is - what else is available that makes a good primary trainer?

The Twin Astir is getting old, K13 is a better ab-initio trainer, but
even older - and both are out of production for decades...

K21 is similar performance, docile to a fault and very expensive.
DuoDiscus is magnificent, but hardly an ab-initio.

LAK20 might be interesting, otherwise you are left with the DG1000 club
or PW6...

Looks like there is a big investment period going to be required. Where
the money comes from will be left as an exercise for the economist. All
of the above are going to cost $100K-$170k ex factory.

So - My "little club" is hoping to find an affordable Grob. (But there
are only 12 members, and few have pennies to spare.) the Grob 103 is a
disaster to derig and trailer, but the L13 was as bad if not worse. The
big club is congratulating itself on selling their L13 a couple of years
ago, but the three G103s are nearly 30 years old...

So - I can understand the desperation, but building new wings for the
Blanik is on the far side of credible as a solution.

As an aside - we only ever had to retrieve the Blanik once in the last
ten years. Landed 800m short of the runway, on the other side of the
stream. Took 5 hours to retrieve...

Cheers
Bruce ;-)

On 2011/02/07 5:04 AM, John Cochrane wrote:
On Feb 6, 8:37 pm, wrote:
If I were to redo the L-13 wing,first thing would be to remove the
forward

sweep and use a strait leading edge with the taper on the trailing edge.
And leave off the wingtip torpedo's,maybe have 45degree winglet's
instead.

Pretty sure the forward sweep is a C/G thing, useful cockpit load and
all... also takes the place of washout, but the C/G thing is more of
a challenge to design around. Agreed on the topedos though. If someone
made a decent composite wing for the L-13, it really should work well.
Plain flaps instead of complicated/ineffective fowlers, and simple
Horner tips...

-paul

Once you've made -- and certified -- a new composite wing to bolt on
to the ungodly uncomfortable cockpit (metal bar right through the
small of the back??) and constantly damaged tailwheel of the L-13, why
not go the whole 9 yards and put a new composite fuselage to go with
it.... and reinvent the ASK21.

Really guys, I've heard some nutty ideas on r.a.s, but this must take
the cake. Don't you think the eddy current test or even rebuilding the
whole darn spar might be a bit cheaper and quicker to certify than
designing and building a whole new wing on which to hang 30 year old
fuselages?

John Cochrane

--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771 & Std Cirrus #57