On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:35:24 -0800, noel.wade wrote:

3) Research the snot out of the gliders you are considering purchasing.
One good place to start are the "Johnson Reports" on the SSA website.

Good advice.

A couple more places to look: if you're considering older gliders, search
out a copy of the first edition of George Moffatt's "Winning on the Wind"
and read the first five chapters.

Similarly, any sailplane reviews by Derek Piggott are worth looking at,
but I can't quote book titles - sorry.




If you're a member, sign in to your account and then look on the
left-hand side of the webpage for "Soaring Magazine", then "Johnson
Reports". Don't believe every word you hear or read online - lots of
people provide "expert" opinions about ships they've never flown. Find
people who've flown a ship, then get their thoughts. If they love the
plane, factor that into their glowing praise and adjust your
expectations downward. If they think the plane is a deathtrap, factor
that into their rants and adjust your expectations upward (slightly).
Also, remember that competition pilots think about aircraft performance
in a different light than most - when I was buying my DG-300 I was
mocked by 1 contest-pilot "because DG stands for Doesn't Go!". But the
performance difference between gliders in the same class/vintage is
often less than 2% - if you're not flying wingtip to wingtip with
someone, you won't notice the difference. During many days of flying, I
have gone farther than my friends who are flying LS-4's and Discuses
(Discii?). A lot of these ships are within 1 or 2 points of L/D of each
other. There's a definite difference between 35:1 and 40:1, but you'd
be hard-pressed to tell the difference between 38:1 and 40:1 or 39:1 and
42:1. Also (on a brief tangent), consider your local weather: If you
live in an area with weak or low thermals, consider the glider's minimum
sink-rate and minimum wing-loading. If you live in an area with really
strong conditions, these aren't as big of an issue.

4) Think about safety as much as performance. There are lots of factors
to consider, and lots of tradeoffs: Automatic control hookups are safer
than L'Hotellier fittings, but they are typically found only on
newer/more-expensive ships (note: manual hookups aren't a deathtrap -
they just require more care). Flaps can get you into tighter landing
spaces, but make for a higher cockpit workload and provide another
system that can go wrong. A well-harmonized control system is arguably
safer than a ship with unbalanced controls (some of the early
all-flying-tail sailplanes have really light elevator stick forces and
heavier stick forces in roll).
Are you comfortable with a CG hook, or do you want a nose-hook (and I
suggest you fly both before you form a strong opinion)? Bigger wing-
spans and older gliders tend to be heavier and harder to rig. They are
also a factor when landing in a field or at an unusual airport, so think
about how likely you are to land out (or how the threat of a bad landout
may change your flying style or options). Is the higher performance (or
in some cases the lower cost) worth the hassle to you?
The list goes on and on... I suggest you list out all of these factors
(and think of as many as you can), then rate them in order of
importance. For me, I valued automatic hookups and ergonomics quite
highly - so I ended up buying a DG-300 (its one of the earliest modern
fiberglass ships with automatic hookups and a well-contoured seatpan).
Also factor in your "mission objectives" - if you want to fly long
cross-countries or competitions, then other things take on new emphasis
- like the ship's L/D, a relief-tube, off-field landing performance &
safety, etc. If you just like floating around the sky and enjoying a
serene flight, then less-expensive lower-performance aircraft become
more of an option.
[Word to the wise: Don't buy a glider with lower performance just
because you can afford it. You'll outgrow it and get bored with it.
Better to stretch for something that you can grow into; or get into a
partnership with a better glider]

It can be HUGELY beneficial to get all of your preferences down on
paper, and figure out the relative priorities and importance of each
item. Listen to other people's advice, but ultimately you have to make
your own decision on how strongly you should weight each factor.

5) I have a few thoughts/comments about a couple of the ships you
mentioned. Many of them are out of your price range or not generally
abvailable, so I'll skip them; but here are a few opinions: * The
LAK-12s were produced in the Soviet Union. Several were stored for many
years and then imported for cheap after the Iron Curtain fell. They are
not deathtraps, but you should be aware that their airfoil is an old one
(from the 1960's), they don't have some of the amenities and features of
other modern sailplanes, and their wings are reportedly very heavy (a
consideration for rigging & de-rigging). * For someone's first ship, the
LS-4 is definitely near the top of the list of fiberglass gliders (along
with the DG-300, ASW-19, ASW-20, Pegasus, and 1 or 2 others).
Unfortunately, that makes them highly desirable and hard to find for a
good price (unless they've been abused).
* AMS Flight has recently been implicated in some bad business practices
and possible financial difficulty; so use care. ALSO, remember the Euro
exchange rate - anything you buy from Europe right now is going to be
pricey and require a lot of money to ship/import to the USA.

Best of luck! Take care,

--Noel



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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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