Best cross country ship class

From my own experience in over 40 different types of sailplanes, Flaps add very little additional workload. Like driving a manual transmission car, it quickly becomes second nature.

Certainly flaps add to better extreme high speed performance. Climb is a more subjective thing. The more experienced pilot with the best sorted out Glider is usually the best climber. The differences are so small in all the production sailplanes, that I doubt anyone that tells me that one particular model is the best,

As far as your question, I prefer Flaps for 1 reason. Landing. Regardless of where you fly, eventually you will have to land off field. It's my experience that steep slow low energy approaches are the easiest done in a flapped ship. I have never had as much confidence flying XC as I did in my ASW-20C. Flaps, spoilers and a great hydraulic disc brake.

As an ex Seattle area pilot. I would highly suggest as much XC exposure as possible. The Seattle Glider Council program with the DG-1000 is good. Hitch a ride with 1 of the members. You will learn a lot just riding along.

A would also suggest taking the time to commute to Ephrata or Wenatchee http://www.cascadesoaringsociety.com/ in Eastern Washington for your early XC flights. There are very few places in this Country that are as safe for Off field landings as these sites. They offer ability to fly Thermal, Ridge and Wave and land anywhere safely. If you can't make it to an airport, your next choice is at least a section sized field, usually with No obstacles.

Buy FLAPS, Get Training in a 2 Seater and Fly Often.

Good luck and let us know what you do.

Paul
Scottsdale AZ

I still own and have many cross-country flights out west in a D2. It's probably the sweetest thermalling ship I've ever owned. Full of water, it will hold its own with most 15-meter ships. The cross-country performance is more likely to be limited by the pilot than the ship.

Having said that, I will agree with others who have recommended flaps. Aero-tow with a fully-ballasted D2 is hairy if you have a weak or slow tug and I sure miss the flaps from my previous ASW-20 when it comes to landing in short spaces.

Mike