Cockpit Size and Comfort

Gotta call BS on the trailer thing. If it's flying you want, who
cares about the trailer? It might add 10-15 minutes to rig and
derig times but that's a miniscule part of the soaring day.

Hmm.. Let me guess, you keep your glider rigged and in a hangar?

The trailer is pretty important when you rig/derig every flight.

"Indeed it is," sez someone (me ) who only rarely ever had access to a
hangar over nearly 40 years of routinely rigging/derigging before/after each
flight...and helping others do the same at our (still) hangar-less home field.
BTDT!!! (In fact, I still think it's weird to go to a glider site where many
gliders are kept rigged in hangars.)

My "pig of a trailer" weighed nearly as much - empty - as my 2600 lb tow
vehicle. It loaded and unloaded over the tongue, and lacked such minor
niceties as a tongue jack and tire fenders. As-received, it also lacked a
functional fuselage dolly, and effectively-wheeled wingroot dollies. Of course
it lacked trailer brakes. I eventually allowed 2 neighbor kids to beat the
plywood monster into splinters and shards, laid the remains on the trailer
floor, trailered the mess to the dump (and brought the running gear back with
me...only to ultimately haul *that* to another dump decades later!). From that
experience and seeing/helping rig/derig from/into all manner of trailers,
including those requiring doubled-over owners to hand-haul wingroots to their
enclosed-trailer, in-trailer, resting supports, I think it accurate to say
I've seen just about every way to rig a glider trailer...both enclosed and
open. Some of the worst led me - and not only in in my callow, feckless youth
- to question the thought processes and sanity of their designers!

I can also recall when I saw my first single-man-rigging trailer...a Dick
Brandt designed/built beauty enclosing an Open Jantar with single-piece wings.

Trailers very definitely ARE an integral part of glider ownership if your
situation involves daily rigging and derigging, and trailers that eliminate
avoidable actions are huge improvements over many I've seen and worked with.
That said, just as pilot differences are a much more significant contributor
to one's XC chances than is ship L/D, pilots who don't recognize that ANY
process can be optimized, can be larger contributors to ship rigging/derigging
agony than improvements even the nicest Cobra trailer bring to the table.

I eventually reached the point where I'd quietly slink away from certain
pilots looking for rigging assistance, due entirely to their frustrating-to-me
approaches to rigging: personal inefficiency; brute force; unwillingness to
listen to truly helpful suggestions; etc.

As for ship rigging ease, I've never encountered any gliders that were
outright difficult to rig...ALL rigging difficulties were due entirely to
pilot ignorance and/or obtuseness. My two worst riggings involved assisting
owners with a PIK-20B (a genuinely easy ship to rig), and a G-102 (similarly
easy, if one simply pays attention to wing alignment...and unlocking the root
ball bearings!).

My - worth every cent paid for it - advice to "prospective new-to-them glass
ship owners" is buy any ship you fit in that has an acceptable-to-you price,
and fly the bejabbers out of it every chance you get/make. If/when you reach
the stage where ship-or-trailer-related things start to become excuses to NOT
fly, it's time either to remedy things or to move on to something else...but
you gotta be honest with yourself about your druthers.

Bob W.