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Old October 30th 07, 12:23 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Why are so many Stemme S10-VT motorgliders for sale?

I recall one occasion where person bought new Stemme from the factory.
On it's arrival to USA from Germany, it had 3 new AD's already. It is
frustrating to buy a new plane and start working the AD's before you
can fly.

On motorgliders generally. I can't understand why a piece of crap
engine installed into glider costs more than a new car. Some things
are totally wrong. Can't the engineers build a reliable engine on a
reasonable price? Cost of motorglider is enourmous now'a'days. Way too
much.

This is the only sport where a sport equipment costs ~$100000 and up
and when you are world champion, you get absolutely nothing. Maybe a
trophy, which you need to ship back home and pay extra fees to
airlines.

Costs are a big dilemma and that is the biggest reason why soaring is
declining...

PS



On 29 loka, 17:03, Dan wrote:
On Oct 27, 9:23 pm, VARR wrote:

There appear to be a number of Stemme S10-VT motorgliders for sale.


Take the wings and wheels motorglider listings. Usually I might see 1
for sale, today there are at least 4. http://wingsandwheels.com/want-ads10.htm


Are these people already upgrading to the Antares? ;-) I'm not
trolling, but rather am looking for actual information and opinions on


For many years I've been on a quest to own a motorglider. It has been
a long time dream of mine to enhance my soaring with the flexibility
only a motorglider offers. I have been watching and learning as much
as I can about all motorgliders (self launchers too) in general. When
I first saw the Stemme in 1992 at Oshkosh (its USA debut) I was very
impressed and I've followed the development of it closely. It's an
awesome machine. No doubt, the Stemme is by far the most complicated
sailplane ever. Also note that it does things no other sailplane has
ever done before. We have a saying in the Aerospace world....."if it
was easy it would have been done before".

I too tried to join the Stemme group, but like you I'm not an owner so
I too was not allowed to join. I agree with you that this is very
frustrating if you are trying to learn more about the Stemme. However
I also understand why the group took this course of action. From what
I've learned they felt that by keeping it only for owners they could
deal with the issues (AD's etc...) more frankly, openly and honestly
between themselves and not become distracted by outside commenter's
and sometimes trolls. This was a tough decision for the group but from
an engineering viewpoint probably the best way to get through what I
call teething problems. I've been around airplanes and gliders my
entire life, I'm an A&P and a professional aerospace engineer for 31
years so I'm well aware of the way aircraft can develop their own set
of rumors and gossip that can take on a life all their own. Rumor
mongering usually leads to nothing productive. I gave up trying to
talk to non-owners who all had an opinion but really were not
knowledgeable and I put them into the category of just generating more
gossip and rumor mongering.

So I too was frustrated in truly trying to learn more about the
Stemme. What I eventually did was talk to owners of Stemme's. Some
were far more open and knowledgeable than others. In general here are
some of what I've learned and some of my observations.

I've learned much about each problem, and AD and they all seem to make
logical sense for why the issue arose and the associated fix. Another
issue I feel is equally important is the preventative maintenance.
With such a complicated aircraft and so many newly developed systems
many of the needed preventative measures were not known or
understood. Time in the fleet has now started to address this. As
far as I can tell Stemme and the owners group have dealt with each
problem. And as far as I know each AD has fixed the problem and it
has not been a recurring problem after the AD was complied with. I
am of the belief that properly maintained and with an understanding
eye one could truly enjoy the unique capabilities only offered by the
Stemme.

The Stemme is certainly on my "short list" of aircraft I'd like to
own.

Dan Rihn
Rihn Aircraft Corp.

PS- Some of my own personal observations on all motorgliders in
general-
One of my nagging concerns with all motorgliders has been the use of
commercial off the shelf (COTS) components, in other words automotive
parts or motorcylcle parts. This has become more and more prevalent
in the aircraft industry and sometimes it works great and sometimes
not so well. Personally I prefer the use of as much more typical (at
least in the USA) AN fittings, certified hoses, TSO'd oil coolers,
wheels tires brakes etc... The rigorous testing these parts have had to
undergo is worth every penny and maybe your life. I also prefer
reliance on as much tried and true system design standards. I
understand that in many cases there are not "certified" parts that can
be used but in areas where they can I wish they would be used as much
as possible. On several motorgliders I've looked into I've seen many
non-standard practices used, I certainly don't like plastic hose
fittings on fuel and oil lines. Obviously several motorgliders also
use non certified engines (some 2-stroke). I'm also not keen on this,
so it's important to look at the fleet reliability. Some of the VW
conversions have been made to work well. But again I prefer as much
typical certified aircraft sub system components as possible.

the S10-VT motorglider.


Thx in advance.


VARR


P.S. I would consult a dedicated Stemme owner/operator site, but the
Stemme Owners Group is closed to prospective owners, and the
simpletons actually redirect discussion to R.A.S. http://stemme.org/
sez "Please note that the list is not open to prospective Stemme
aircraft owners, and those interested in acquiring one ... are invited
to contact one of the Stemme sales agencies noted above or to consult
Internet resources such as the rec.aviation.soaring Usenet newsgroup."