Growth in soaring

Ramy wrote:
On Mar 25, 6:22 am, wrote:
A few years ago at Aboyne, I had an interesting chat with a hang
glider pilot who was starting gliding. He was quite competitive but
did not have the £11,000 or so to buy a top competition hang glider.
There are some old but still very good glass gliders around like the
Kestrel 19, for less than that, so he decided to switch and was going
to buy a share in one when he was qualified.

Interesting case, as in the US there is no way one will save money by
moving from hang gliding to gliding (assuming maintaining the same
level of activity). Comparing a top of the line 11,000 hang glider
with a Kestrel is like comparing apple to oranges, the equivalent is
more like a $100,000 sailplane. The ratio is close to 10:1 in price,
so the equivalent to the Kestrel will be the typical $2000-$3000 hang
glider.

The hang glider pilot may not see it that way at all, instead, he
discovers he can spend 11,000 (pounds, dollars, whatever) on a sailplane
and get FAR more performance than he could with even the finest hang
glider avialable. He can have a great cross-country flight covering much
more ground and it doesn't end in a retrieve like it always did in his
hang glider. Further, he is totally impressed that he can fly that
glider for several years and sell it for as much, likely more, than he
paid for it, while his $11,000 hang glider has lost value. And he has a
nice, easy drive to the airport instead of beating up his truck on
logging roads up some mountain to the launch site.

Oh, one more thing: the pilot's wife is so pleased that he now makes it
home in time for dinner!

Based on a conversation with a former hang glider pilot that was
spending less by soaring in a sailplane, flying more, and enjoying it
more. And it was only a Ka-6e that he was flying.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org