DG's in competition?

Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:12:06 -0500, wrote:

Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

We're afraid we'll break a $100 part and have to pay DG $2000 in service
fees in order to get it...

--Stefan

--
Stefan Murry
DG-200

On 7/16/2012 1:58 PM, S. Murry wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:12:06 -0500, wrote:

Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

We're afraid we'll break a $100 part and have to pay DG $2000 in service
fees in order to get it...

Isn't that just on the older gliders that were not built by DG?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

"Perceived" performance

Discus / ASW24 / ASW28 / LS7 / LS8 / SZD55 are all considered to have the
legs on DG300 series

Ventus / ASW27 / ASG29 considered to hahe the legs on DG 600 / 800

Duo considered to have legs on DG1000

If you were a budding comp pilot why would you buy a DG?

Why they're not seen in handicapped comps is a different matter.

P'raps there are just fewer around

PF

At 19:12 16 July 2012, wrote:
Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

On Monday, July 16, 2012 12:12:06 PM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:
Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

Rick,
A DG 300 just won the AirSailing Sports class regional, and another did well in the Standard Class nats ( both handicapped races.) I feel that most DG's have been motorgliders and in general MG pilots do not race. The DG 800 is not quite the performance equal of the newer 18m ships.
Richard Walters

The market based answer is that they are not considered to be competitive. This is further complicated by their inability to figure out how to make spare parts and service profitable enough for them without resorting to the extortion of the owners of their older gliders with the service contract/operating manual scheme.

In regards to their newer gilders; they have already demonstrated their lack of intelligence when it comes to attempting to force people to buy things vs. making them want to by things. What will keep them from changing which gliders require a service contract in the future? "Trust us, we wouldn't do that" sounds a little hollow coming from an extortionist.

Look at the resale values of older LS and DG gliders before and after the Service contract fiasco. DG has cost a lot of us, a lot of money, and we are not likely to forget it. I really don't see how a company that acts like this expects to survive, and I really don't think they deserve too either.

On Monday, July 16, 2012 12:12:06 PM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:
Simple question. Why are DG sailplanes so seldom seen in competition?
Thanks
Rick Lake

I disagree, I think you see them quite often in the OLC competition. And the results you can see for yourselves.

As an actual DG-300 owner, let me try to answer with more than just a
complaint about the Service Fee (which, yes, I hate; and do not pay.
My ship is registered experimental and therefore I rarely have to
actually buy a factory part).

For one reason or another, DG's were never developed with racing as
their top priority (unlike, say, some of the S-H ships). Early on,
the folks behind DG were working on lots of other things besides
winning races. High-end performance was sought, but not optimized.
They don't seem to have pursued new airfoils as aggressively as some
others (witness the DG-400 re-using the DG-200 wing, with its older
Wortmann airfoil). My DG-300 is a prime example of the company's
priorities: It has much better ergonomics, visibility, and control-
harmony than many of its contemporaries (the LS-4 being one notable
exception in the realm of ergonomics and control-harmony). The DG-300
was also one of the very first gliders to have all-automatic control
hookups, and a ballast-dump system that prevents the CG from migrating
aft during the dumping process.

But starting about the time the DG-300 came out, a lot of the glider
manufacturers realized that simply achieving max L/D was no longer the
ultimate goal of their research and new aircraft. They'd reached a
point of severe diminishing returns in that realm. And as cross-
country flying became more refined it was realized that higher wing-
loadings and faster speeds were the areas to concentrate on. In the
mid/late 1980's (right after the DG-300 came out), research and new
aircraft shifted towards airfoils that no longer pushed for a higher
overall L/D; but instead had a flatter polar and retained more of
their L/D at higher speeds. For example: At low speeds and
thermalling, I can do just as well (if not beat) modern racing
machines with similar wingspans & wing-loadings. But when cruising at
80 knots my DG-300 sinks a full 40-60 feet per minute more than a more
modern ship like an LS-8. This isn't really noticeable in casual XC
flying; but in racing it adds up.

At the time the DG-300 came out, the differences in performance were
much smaller, though. Unfortunately, I think DG miscalculated in
thinking that a safe-and-pleasant-to-fly glider would sell on its own
merits. The other manufacturers concentrated on race results and
contest victories as "proof" of the superiority of their aircraft
designs, and were largely successful in their efforts. Given the
rapid advance of soaring technology over the 1970's and 1980's, race
victories helped buoy the idea that a ship that won a contest was "the
new hot thing". DG was never "the new hot thing" on the circuit, and
so it never gained the reputation as a racer.

Fast forward to today. I bought my DG-300 thinking I wouldn't get
into racing (I was concentrating on safety and ergonomics and value-
for-the-dollar so the DG-300 made sense for me). Several people told
me at the time that I was making a bad choice because "DG-300's don't
really 'go' - look at the race results". Yet I have successfully
campaigned my DG-300 in a half-dozen Regional contests (in Sports
Class) over the last 3.5 years. I've consistently finished in the top
5, including taking 2nd place at the Ephrata regionals (my "home"
contest) 3 years in a row. I also took 4th (technically 5th, behind
an Aussie guest pilot) at the Std Class Nationals a few weeks ago -
which was a handicapped race this year. The people that finished
above me in the Nats were all current or former National Champions
with at least 20+ years more flying experience - so I'm OK with where
I wound up. I've only been flying gliders for 5.5 years; so its not
like I'm some jedi-master of the sport - the ship *has* to be
reasonably competitive for this to be possible. I've also set state
records and made 500+ km flights with the aircraft; its certainly no
slouch!

--Noel
P.S. Eric: Sadly, No. It includes DG's built by the former Glaser-
Dirks company. Basically, anything that the DG Flugzuegbau company
supports that it isn't currently selling as a new glider is subject to
the "fee". So far I've always been successful in ducking it,
though. :-P

Thanks everyone!! Very insightful answers.
And thank you Al Gore for inventing the Internet!!!

Rick

On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 1:40:32 PM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:
Thanks everyone!! Very insightful answers.
And thank you Al Gore for inventing the Internet!!!

Rick

I intentionally don’t comment much on these groups because of the time it can take away from other important matters, but in this case, as a US DG dealer I feel I am obligated to correct some of the misinformation I am reading. First, Eric is actually correct. The Service contract only applies to aircraft that the current DG Flugzeugbau Company did not originally build.. It only applies to gliders built before they were founded in 1996 and formerly built by Rolladen-Schneider and Glaser-Dirks, both of which went out of business. All gliders built by DG Flugzeugbau, according to Mr. Weber, will never have such a service agreement as long as DG stays in business, even for gliders no longer in production. EASA has made it much more expensive in recent years to support these older gliders and the service agreement helps pay these expenses. Granted there are many opinions about better ways this could have been handled so not to disgruntle existing owners, but the service agreement does not have anything to do with the quality or performance of the gliders built by DG Flugzeugbau. Regarding the comments about bankruptcy; Mr. Weber is a very wealthy man and has his hands in many other ventures as well. He has the means and says he will never let the company go into bankruptcy. In fact with the orders I placed with them to fulfill my USG contract to supply 19 gliders to the USAFA, I am sure they are well in the black. Second, please note aircraft with Experimental certificates that were not certificated in the armature built category still must be maintained safe and airworthy with FAA approved parts. Also, contrary to many beliefs, AD’s can and many times do apply to these aircraft when the same model would have later received a type certificate. In such cases the AD will state in the Applicability section “certified in any category”. Third, DG is the only German glider manufacturer that has done crash testing and developed the dual wall construction cockpit for better crash worthiness. They have since been in the forefront in safety features such as the making the Röger hook and Piggott-hook features standard on all their gliders. They also came out with many other safety features such as the NOAH system for quicker cockpit emergency exiting. There is perhaps a compromise to safety and maximum performance but that is not to say DG gliders have not done well in competition. Here are the Competition results so you can see for yourself: http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/wettbew...rgebnisse.html.
Chris