Libelle suitability for beginners

On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 11:44:54 -0800, son_of_flubber wrote:

Another 'Club Class' glider to consider is the SZD 51-1. The Junior is
benign, built to sustain hard landings, has very effective airbrakes,
it slips, PU painted at the factory (no gel coat liability), fun to fly
well-harmonized controls, and designed from the ground up to be a single
seat trainer. Limited aerobatics permitted.

Yes, my club owns two Juniors, which are used as the next step after the
ASK-21 for our newly soloed pilots. I agree with all the things you said
about them and have a lot of time on them too: I got my Bronze and did
all legs of the Silver C in our Juniors, so I flew them fore about a year
before converting to our high performance fleet (Pegase 90 and Discus).

The only thing I'd add is that you MUST read the Junior's POH before
spinning one: Juniors have three slightly different spin behaviours
depending on pilot weight and it helps to know which to expect.

Another good glider for low-time pilots is the 205 Club Libelle - there's
one in our club and its owners really love it. Big cockpit, but there
were only 171 made, so they're even rarer than SZD Juniors.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org