Diana-2 - master-piece or flop?

- Strangely enough Mr.Johnosn did not publish these
'revelations'.

I am not taking any sides in the Dianna 2 debate, as
it seems like a hot ship, with a not too shabby track
record to back that up and I do not have rounded enough
info to pass judgment on it. I do want to point out
however, that this thread is about s/n 3 or higher;
Johnson tested s/n 2, the personal Dianna 2 of the
US dealer. I am curious to hear more, both good or
bad (hopefully good though). One can never be too cautious
about believing hype on any product, especially sailplanes,
but I do want to point out that the Poles have a very
good track record when it comes to their ship's performances
and their claims about them. In general they tend to
be very objective, scientific, and accurately stated,
as confirmed by many other Johnson (and other's) tests,
including s/n 2 Dianna II. But lets not stifle further
discussion on the subject.

Paul Hanson
"Do the usual, unusually well"--Len Niemi

" this thread is about s/n 3 or higher;"

There is a very good report on another ship in the US, which I assume
is SN3 or higher and reports nothing of rumors that you are passing
on.

From Bill Liscomb's report on his ship:

Off tow the fun really begins! It
is easy to fly and the roll rate is downright
snappy. As with most flapped ships,
as the flaps go farther down, the adverse
yaw goes up. But at normal climb/cruise
settings it is not noticeable and control
harmony is good. I haven't flown with
other ships very much, so I can't claim
any kind of remarkable thermalling performance.
I do know this thing has
climbed out of situations where my previous
glider, a 304CZ, would have had
problems. The flying weight of the Diana 2
(without water ballast) is about 25 pounds
heavier than the empty weight of the 304CZ! Empty weight of my Diana 2
with instruments, battery, oxygen, etc., is 433 lbs.
Then, there is the glide. Unreal! I'm still having trust issues with
the glide computer. It seems impossible that a 15m ship
has legs like this! The factory provides a nice sheet of linear graphs
showing flap settings for speeds at different wing loading. The
idea with the flap charts is you cut them out and stack them together
with a glue stick. As you dump water, simply peel off charts
until you get to your current wing loading. The correct flap setting
is mandatory to get the best performance from this ship. In
March of 2007, I did get to see what a load of bugs does. I checked
out my black, fuzzy leading edges, then set the glide computer to
20% bugs and did a 30 mile final glide. I got back to Warner very
high, dialed the bugs back to zero, and it showed my actual arrival
altitude.
I've done one flight with water
ballast. I put in 43gallons (344 lbs)
plus another 12lbs in the tail, which put
me at just under 1,000lbs (1102 lbs is
the maximum). This gave a wing loading
of 10.6 lbs sq ft. (the dry wingloading
is about 6.7 lbs sq ft). Once off
tow, the water transforms the glider
into a rocket. I felt like I was strapped
inside a runaway locomotive. I flew on
August 29th, 2006, a great day in So-
Cal, and SeeYou showed two segments
over 170 miles with no turns and average
speeds 113 and 116mph.
Landings are easy. I use the
+21 flap setting rather than the +28
because of the wind we usually have at
Warner Springs. This setting also increases
aileron effectiveness while
dealing with the normal crosswind
shear, thermals and turbulence on final.
Wheel landings are the norm - touch
down, add full spoilers, put flaps full
negative, hold the tail off, roll to a stop.
The Diana 2 is small and light, both in the air and on the ground. It
is a total blast to fly. Soaring in Southern California is
unique in that a pilot can encounter several different air masses in
one flight. Without water ballast, the Diana 2 is very capable of
handling these conditions. It does very well in small, weak thermals
as well as the big rowdy stuff, and has an amazing glide over a
wide speed range. When it gets good, simply add water. Lots and lots
of water...

Thanks for the report.
I do not know were people pick up those ideas.
I did fly a few times with and against the Diana and I was very much
impressed. I also did sit in the cockpit and I was not able to get
comfortable.Other then that I was very much tempted. Instead I got an
other glider.
Udo

On Jun 17, 4:00 pm, tommytoyz wrote:
" this thread is about s/n 3 or higher;"

There is a very good report on another ship in the US, which I assume
is SN3 or higher and reports nothing of rumors that you are passing
on.

From Bill Liscomb's report on his ship:

Off tow the fun really begins! It
is easy to fly and the roll rate is downright
snappy. As with most flapped ships,
as the flaps go farther down, the adverse
yaw goes up. But at normal climb/cruise
settings it is not noticeable and control
harmony is good. I haven't flown with
other ships very much, so I can't claim
any kind of remarkable thermalling performance.
I do know this thing has
climbed out of situations where my previous
glider, a 304CZ, would have had
problems. The flying weight of the Diana 2
(without water ballast) is about 25 pounds
heavier than the empty weight of the 304CZ! Empty weight of my Diana 2
with instruments, battery, oxygen, etc., is 433 lbs.
Then, there is the glide. Unreal! I'm still having trust issues with
the glide computer. It seems impossible that a 15m ship
has legs like this! The factory provides a nice sheet of linear graphs
showing flap settings for speeds at different wing loading. The
idea with the flap charts is you cut them out and stack them together
with a glue stick. As you dump water, simply peel off charts
until you get to your current wing loading. The correct flap setting
is mandatory to get the best performance from this ship. In
March of 2007, I did get to see what a load of bugs does. I checked
out my black, fuzzy leading edges, then set the glide computer to
20% bugs and did a 30 mile final glide. I got back to Warner very
high, dialed the bugs back to zero, and it showed my actual arrival
altitude.
I've done one flight with water
ballast. I put in 43gallons (344 lbs)
plus another 12lbs in the tail, which put
me at just under 1,000lbs (1102 lbs is
the maximum). This gave a wing loading
of 10.6 lbs sq ft. (the dry wingloading
is about 6.7 lbs sq ft). Once off
tow, the water transforms the glider
into a rocket. I felt like I was strapped
inside a runaway locomotive. I flew on
August 29th, 2006, a great day in So-
Cal, and SeeYou showed two segments
over 170 miles with no turns and average
speeds 113 and 116mph.
Landings are easy. I use the
+21 flap setting rather than the +28
because of the wind we usually have at
Warner Springs. This setting also increases
aileron effectiveness while
dealing with the normal crosswind
shear, thermals and turbulence on final.
Wheel landings are the norm - touch
down, add full spoilers, put flaps full
negative, hold the tail off, roll to a stop.
The Diana 2 is small and light, both in the air and on the ground. It
is a total blast to fly. Soaring in Southern California is
unique in that a pilot can encounter several different air masses in
one flight. Without water ballast, the Diana 2 is very capable of
handling these conditions. It does very well in small, weak thermals
as well as the big rowdy stuff, and has an amazing glide over a
wide speed range. When it gets good, simply add water. Lots and lots
of water...

What you say sounds more reasonable
but the described problems are not only rumors.
What happened with serial number 3 in Australia is confirmed.

Question is: which production number is your plane?? and when was
it delivered? I agree that if the glider flies as nicely as it looks, it
would
be a good package to buy.

But I heard that number-3 still is in Australia and that the owner (a
company who sponsored the glider) is having differences with the
manufacturer who has to pay for transport......

The pilot also contacted the factory in December I was told, but the
manufacturers service reaction was silence until the message went
through, that the glider is considered as not airworthy. All requests
for information's how to solve the problems got no results and when
the Australian season was over, the pilot was really upset not having
been able to do anything but test-fly the ship, try modifications and
try again.

On paper the performance looks very good. But it looks as if not
all gliders of the same type fly the same.
__________________________________________________ ___

"tommytoyz" wrote in message
ups.com...
" this thread is about s/n 3 or higher;"

There is a very good report on another ship in the US, which I assume
is SN3 or higher and reports nothing of rumors that you are passing
on.

From Bill Liscomb's report on his ship:

Off tow the fun really begins! It
is easy to fly and the roll rate is downright
snappy. As with most flapped ships,
as the flaps go farther down, the adverse
yaw goes up. But at normal climb/cruise
settings it is not noticeable and control
harmony is good. I haven't flown with
other ships very much, so I can't claim
any kind of remarkable thermalling performance.
I do know this thing has
climbed out of situations where my previous
glider, a 304CZ, would have had
problems. The flying weight of the Diana 2
(without water ballast) is about 25 pounds
heavier than the empty weight of the 304CZ! Empty weight of my Diana 2
with instruments, battery, oxygen, etc., is 433 lbs.
Then, there is the glide. Unreal! I'm still having trust issues with
the glide computer. It seems impossible that a 15m ship
has legs like this! The factory provides a nice sheet of linear graphs
showing flap settings for speeds at different wing loading. The
idea with the flap charts is you cut them out and stack them together
with a glue stick. As you dump water, simply peel off charts
until you get to your current wing loading. The correct flap setting
is mandatory to get the best performance from this ship. In
March of 2007, I did get to see what a load of bugs does. I checked
out my black, fuzzy leading edges, then set the glide computer to
20% bugs and did a 30 mile final glide. I got back to Warner very
high, dialed the bugs back to zero, and it showed my actual arrival
altitude.
I've done one flight with water
ballast. I put in 43gallons (344 lbs)
plus another 12lbs in the tail, which put
me at just under 1,000lbs (1102 lbs is
the maximum). This gave a wing loading
of 10.6 lbs sq ft. (the dry wingloading
is about 6.7 lbs sq ft). Once off
tow, the water transforms the glider
into a rocket. I felt like I was strapped
inside a runaway locomotive. I flew on
August 29th, 2006, a great day in So-
Cal, and SeeYou showed two segments
over 170 miles with no turns and average
speeds 113 and 116mph.
Landings are easy. I use the
+21 flap setting rather than the +28
because of the wind we usually have at
Warner Springs. This setting also increases
aileron effectiveness while
dealing with the normal crosswind
shear, thermals and turbulence on final.
Wheel landings are the norm - touch
down, add full spoilers, put flaps full
negative, hold the tail off, roll to a stop.
The Diana 2 is small and light, both in the air and on the ground. It
is a total blast to fly. Soaring in Southern California is
unique in that a pilot can encounter several different air masses in
one flight. Without water ballast, the Diana 2 is very capable of
handling these conditions. It does very well in small, weak thermals
as well as the big rowdy stuff, and has an amazing glide over a
wide speed range. When it gets good, simply add water. Lots and lots
of water...

On Jun 18, 2:17 pm, "BlueCumulus" wrote:
What you say sounds more reasonable
but the described problems are not only rumors.
What happened with serial number 3 in Australia is confirmed.

Question is: which production number is your plane?? and when was
it delivered? I agree that if the glider flies as nicely as it looks, it
would
be a good package to buy.

But I heard that number-3 still is in Australia and that the owner (a
company who sponsored the glider) is having differences with the
manufacturer who has to pay for transport......

The pilot also contacted the factory in December I was told, but the
manufacturers service reaction was silence until the message went
through, that the glider is considered as not airworthy. All requests
for information's how to solve the problems got no results and when
the Australian season was over, the pilot was really upset not having
been able to do anything but test-fly the ship, try modifications and
try again.

On paper the performance looks very good. But it looks as if not
all gliders of the same type fly the same.
__________________________________________________ ___

"tommytoyz" wrote in message

ups.com...

" this thread is about s/n 3 or higher;"

There is a very good report on another ship in the US, which I assume
is SN3 or higher and reports nothing of rumors that you are passing
on.

From Bill Liscomb's report on his ship:

Off tow the fun really begins! It
is easy to fly and the roll rate is downright
snappy. As with most flapped ships,
as the flaps go farther down, the adverse
yaw goes up. But at normal climb/cruise
settings it is not noticeable and control
harmony is good. I haven't flown with
other ships very much, so I can't claim
any kind of remarkable thermalling performance.
I do know this thing has
climbed out of situations where my previous
glider, a 304CZ, would have had
problems. The flying weight of the Diana 2
(without water ballast) is about 25 pounds
heavier than the empty weight of the 304CZ! Empty weight of my Diana 2
with instruments, battery, oxygen, etc., is 433 lbs.
Then, there is the glide. Unreal! I'm still having trust issues with
the glide computer. It seems impossible that a 15m ship
has legs like this! The factory provides a nice sheet of linear graphs
showing flap settings for speeds at different wing loading. The
idea with the flap charts is you cut them out and stack them together
with a glue stick. As you dump water, simply peel off charts
until you get to your current wing loading. The correct flap setting
is mandatory to get the best performance from this ship. In
March of 2007, I did get to see what a load of bugs does. I checked
out my black, fuzzy leading edges, then set the glide computer to
20% bugs and did a 30 mile final glide. I got back to Warner very
high, dialed the bugs back to zero, and it showed my actual arrival
altitude.
I've done one flight with water
ballast. I put in 43gallons (344 lbs)
plus another 12lbs in the tail, which put
me at just under 1,000lbs (1102 lbs is
the maximum). This gave a wing loading
of 10.6 lbs sq ft. (the dry wingloading
is about 6.7 lbs sq ft). Once off
tow, the water transforms the glider
into a rocket. I felt like I was strapped
inside a runaway locomotive. I flew on
August 29th, 2006, a great day in So-
Cal, and SeeYou showed two segments
over 170 miles with no turns and average
speeds 113 and 116mph.
Landings are easy. I use the
+21 flap setting rather than the +28
because of the wind we usually have at
Warner Springs. This setting also increases
aileron effectiveness while
dealing with the normal crosswind
shear, thermals and turbulence on final.
Wheel landings are the norm - touch
down, add full spoilers, put flaps full
negative, hold the tail off, roll to a stop.
The Diana 2 is small and light, both in the air and on the ground. It
is a total blast to fly. Soaring in Southern California is
unique in that a pilot can encounter several different air masses in
one flight. Without water ballast, the Diana 2 is very capable of
handling these conditions. It does very well in small, weak thermals
as well as the big rowdy stuff, and has an amazing glide over a
wide speed range. When it gets good, simply add water. Lots and lots
of water...

It looks to me that the manufacturer decided to built different glider
for use in Australia, different for the U.S. and different for
Europe????
Meeesathinkingthatyou'respreadingnaaaaastyrumooooo r..........

You keep saying " is confirmed". That's not good enough. Who says this
exactly? How do you come by this information from the identified
source? This also does not jive with what you yourself say in your
opening post that it is a rumor, now you say it isn't.

Your quote:
"The bad rumors I heard about number-3 of Diana-2. "

Double speak here and this does not go to credibility. To regain such,
you would really need to explicitly identify the origin of the rumor
that you are passing on.

Bill Liscomb's ship is certainly SN3 - but you should confirm that
with him. Gossip (your word), like, "glider is stalling while
thermaling over inner wing at speeds CLmax with aileron control not
good enough to keep bank when circling 30deg" is just not credible in
light of flight reports to the contrary, even if the wing was moved
5cm, which I have not heard.

Perhaps you should reveal your sources and more details to fill us all
in here, otherwise nothing is "confirmed".

Ingo Renner flew it and his statement was:
The plane unfortunately can not be flown to its full performance,
because it behaves so badly.
Do you need a better reference?


"tommytoyz" wrote in message
oups.com...
Double speak here and this does not go to credibility. To regain such,
you would really need to explicitly identify the origin of the rumor
that you are passing on.

On Jun 19, 4:31 am, "BlueCumulus" wrote:
Do you need a better reference?

Look up reference in a dictionary, then come back and give us one.

Quite apart from that though Bill is absolutely right. The older
German manufacturers are being left behind by other companies across
the board. It's not suprising nor unusual that people try and rubbish
threats to their favourite brands.


Dan

On Jun 19, 9:00 am, Dan G wrote:
On Jun 19, 4:31 am, "BlueCumulus" wrote:

Do you need a better reference?

Look up reference in a dictionary, then come back and give us one.

Quite by chance I've found one myself:

"DISTURBING NEWS ABOUT THE DIANA 2 Czech Republic pilot, Hana Zejdova
who has set some 26 world records has just upgraded to a new Diana 2.
I have been informed that her sailplane has been grounded at Tocumwal,
Australia. At certain speeds, it pulls in one direction, and has to
be slowed down to straighten it up. The sailplane has other in-flight
problems requiring attention. Australians that have flown the
sailplane have been less than impressed with its handling qualities."

http://www.glidingmagazine.com/NewsArticle.asp?id=1605 , posted July 4
2007.

That's sufficiently different from what's been posted here for me to
be sure that it isn't simply based on this thread. So yes, it does
indeed look like that at least one Diana 2 has big problems.


Dan

On Jun 18, 11:31 pm, "BlueCumulus" wrote:
Ingo Renner flew it and his statement was:
The plane unfortunately can not be flown to its full performance,
because it behaves so badly.
Do you need a better reference?

If the plane cannot be flown to its fullest potential and it WON the
15 meter WORLDS and then again it WON the Grand Prix in France, and
bunch of other things in between then it you can only imagine what its
fullest potential is.
And no I dont need to hear a "reference" from blind and dishonest
competition.