On Fri, 28 May 2021 01:45:38 -0700, LoftusRoadLad wrote:

I've seen the 201 on Wings and Wheels. I've read a couple of online
items on the Libelle and they seem to be fairly glowing--not bad anyway.
However, they are all, naturally, pretty old and with them being early
glass birds I was wondering if I should be concerned about
that--maintaining condition, repairs, upkeep etc. Also, the airbrakes
from what I can tell aren't great at spoiling lift--I'd like some views
on that. I looked on the NTSB database for Libelle accidents and quite a
few of the accidents were regarding landing out and not being able to
lose altitude quickly enough--though I understand it slips well, or not
having much braking once on the deck.

Bear in mind when reading what follows that I had just under 270 hours
when I first flew a Libelle 201 from an aero tow - and had a nice 24
minute flight in fairly liftless conditions and no issues with flying it.
I was looking for a glider after flying club single seaters from 17 hours
(when I converted from ASK-21 to SZD Junior) and then to a Pegase 90 at
82 hours: so I'd been flying club single seaters (Pegase and Discus)
cross country for around 180 hours before first climbing into a Libelle.

I also read that although it is supposed to be easy (a gem) to
assemble/disassemble, there might be an historical issue with a pin that
could have dire consequences.

That's true - nobody runs away if you ask for help rigging or de-rigging
a Libelle. It helps a lot that the spar stubs are fully visible during
this process. Elevator is self-connecting and stab is locked in place
with a single screw. There's a single, central pin that holds the wings
together and airgrakes are self-connection. The only real gotcha is that
the aileron connectors are just inside the fuselage and you *MUST* feel
under them as you drop the spring-loaded center pin through the ball
bearing on the end of the aileron push-rod. If you can't feel the end of
the pin projecting 1/4" or so through the underside of the bearing you've
done it wrong, so pull the pin up against the spring and do it again.
Repeat as needed until the pin is correctly fitted and sticking out of
the underside of the bearing.

Finally, although just about every thing I've read is encouraging, there
are quite a few for sale on W&W. I was wondering about that too--but
there's a few 1-26s as well, so...

I've had mine for 15 years, it had passed its 3000 hour inspection before
I bought it. The only major issues have been that:

- I damaged one of the aileron drives. They're fragile - NEVER, EVER
apply any force at all to the stick if you've got aileron locks or the
wing dolly fitted. For this reason its also better to have the wings off
or the ailerons disconnected before taking the panel out or putting it
back - this need the stick to be hard over on one side or the other to
slide the panel past it.

- I'm currently having one of the airbrakes bearings replaced because of
corrosion due to water leaks through an old (now replaced) set of covers.

The type certificate holder is Glasfaser in Germany - they're a pleasure
to deal with and very helpful if you need spares and/or drawings.

I think everything else I can tell you is he
https://www.gregorie.org/gliding/lib...201_notes.html



--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org