ASW20 or LS6

*That "0 incidence wing"

Story time........On a long final glide with another LS-6, we were
dead even, 35 miles out, best L/D, no wind, no sink. My wingman said,
"watch this" and slowley but surely, he started gaining on me. When he
reached 20 feet above me, I asked, "OK what did you do?"
He replied, "I pulled in one notch of flap" (+5)
Why did that work? Because my ship with zero flap and slow speed, the
fuselage was slightly nose up, but the air hitting the ship with +5
flaps was straight into the relative wind.
I regret the day I sold the old girl,
JJ

On Jan 30, 6:06*pm, binks wrote:
I am looking to purchase my first glider. I have been looking at the
ASW20 and the LS6. Any suggestions on which glider would be the best
all around? I have heard that the LS6 has a narrow cockpit. I am 6'2"
200 lbs. and would be wearing a parachute. Also heard that the ASW20
can be a little unforgiving to the uninitiated in the spin department.
Both seem to have very similar performance data. *All that being said
it is appearing to me it may be Ford vs Chevy

Been away from the sport for a while. This is my first post since the
late 90s...

One day I traded my LS-6a for a friend's AS-W 20B for a day's flying.
He thought the '6 was "twitchy" and I thought the '20 was "heavy on
the controls". The '20 definitely had a lot more room in the cockpit
than the '6.

I agree with all that's been said regarding training and training for
the type of ship you'll be flying. I truly don't think it's wise for
an inexperienced pilot who's only flown the 2-33 to jump into such a
slick ship as either of the two you're considering. You will find
that it'll be off the runway before you know what's happening. It
will accelerate a lot quicker than you're used to, and will be a lot
less forgiving than a simpler ship.

It's not that either ship is hard to fly - in fact, both are easy.
The danger to a new pilot is the speed at which things change. Flaps
are not a problem if you know how to use them and where to set them
for the conditions of flight. Book knowledge is not enough - you have
to feel how to use them in tight situations.

My former partner was very experienced in gliders with about 500 hours
in our LS-6a. I watched him stall and spin at low altitude and
crash. Just a moment's inattention...

If you decide to get a flapped ship for your first glider, please pay
attention. Don't become complacent because it is easier to fly than a
2-33 (my opinion). If you fall asleep, it will bite you.

So, in answer to your original question about which is better... I'm
currently looking for my THIRD LS-6. I like the '6 so much that,
after the crash of my first, I found a new partner with one!

OK so I'll chip in some experience. Grizzled yes, instructor for the
last 5 or so years...

The experience is still new enough to remember the embarrassment when I
wanted to transition to the Std Cirrus I had purchased. Having learned
exclusively, and flown exclusively in wood , tube + rag (Bergfalke 2-55
if you must know) I found I had spent too much time in really draggy,
slow low performance ships. Result is that I took quite a few flights to
get my speed under control in something as forgiving as a Grob 103.

Lesson learned is that it is far better to learn on something a little
higher performance - but if you are solo in such a low performance old
lady - you will need some transition training.

What worked for me was about 10 launches in a Grob103 with an instructor
in the back. flying in different conditions and locations to get the
feel of the faster everything (accelleration, stall, pitch response) and
vastly better glide angle (hint - it is impossible to make a good
landing when you arrive over the threshold with full brakes and fifty
feet of clear air under your wheel...) Unfortunately in a draggy old
ship it is all too easy to develop bad habits. The sooner you fly higher
performance the easier I would assume to change them.

My first launch in the Cirrus was perfectly safe and I had less than 50
hours total time at that point. I made sure it was on a field I knew
well, in calm conditions - try to stack the risk factors in your favour
and fly the glider.

Now - My daughter is learning in the Grob103 and is not phased by the
performance, it is normal to her. At 10 hours her speed control is
excellent. She was disconcerted by how unresponsive the Bergie was when
I introduced her to it.

Cheers
Bruce

On 2011/02/02 1:44 AM, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 21:39 01 February 2011, wrote:


I'm gonna be the grizzled old instructor that is going to suggest you
need to go very carefully.
I expect the folks I supervise to get at least 50 hrs in a 1-34(that's
what we have) before moving on to glass
of the type described. At the very least a good bit of time in some
intermediate ship.
These ships fly very nicely but they are heavier, twice as slippery,
all are tailwheel aircraft, virtually all have CG
hooks being aero towed, and all require very good stall- spin skills
compared to a 2-33 primary trainer.
To do this safely, you need a couple ships in between and a good
coach.
Good luck and take care
UH

Sorry to disagree in a way. Many people do their first solo in either an
ASW21 or Grob103, both could be described as fairly slippery compared to
the old wood and metal. Many other organisations accept that if you set
the level of training correctly, and train a person to fly the type he is
destined to fly then there should be no problem. Same applies to flaps,
there is no real difficulty there provided the right training is given.
I have long had issues with instructors who insist that people fly low
performance gliders before getting in the hot ships. If you set out to do
the proper training there is no reason to do that.
I too am a grizzled old instructor, been instructing for 46 years and in
the beginning all there was was wood or metal. That is no reason to force
those that have followed me to fly low performance first, I hope my
teaching is better than that.


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771 & Std Cirrus #57

I couldn't agree more that it's vital to get glass time. I learned to
fly in a 2-33 an was transitioned to a "hot" 1-26. After flying that
for about 80 hours I moved to another area found a new spot to fly. I
went up with an instructor in a G103. Speed control (and coordination)
were big issues. I remember going into the turn from base to final at
about 58 kts and coming out at 68+ kts ... too high and too fast. the
runway comes up quickly at that speed and with the instructor
"yelling" in the back things were happeing much faster than I was used
to. It took a bunch of flights to understand the energy that is
gererated by a slippery ship. After that the transition into a 102 was
easy. That was 30 years ago and I haven't been in a 2-33 since...

On Jan 31, 10:17*pm, binks wrote:
On Jan 31, 8:34*pm, Bob Whelan wrote:





On 1/31/2011 1:16 PM, Jonathon May wrote:

You don't say how much experience you have, but both the ASW 20 and LS6
are flapped, and not suitable for low hours pilots.

Having transitioned - safely & entirely uneventfully (in the negative sense of
things) - from 2-33s/1-26s to a no-negative-flap, spoiler-less (i.e. large
deflection landing flaps-only), 'in-between'/non-nose tow-hooked single-seat
sailplane, with a total of 128+ glider-only hours logged, I would suggest the
above position may be just a tad overstated.

How one mentally approaches flaps and their use (or, non-use, as the
transitioning-case may be) is, I believe, vastly more important than seeking
comfort in hard-n-fast 'stick-time rules.'

For example, if the flaps are camber-changing-only (e.g. LS-6), you can simply
set/leave them at zero until such time as you feel comfortable experimenting
with them. Both ships permit use of spoilers to assist initial aileron
response if aero-towing (just as a transitionee might already be doing in
unflapped glass). Further, Schleicher's '20 (and Rolladen-Schneider's LS-6)
allow (insist-on) the use of spoilers as the primary glideslope control
device. (Kinda-sorta related, just because the ship being transitioning to has
retractable gear is no reason to believe one *must* retract or cycle the gear
on early flights.)

No harm in using the KISS philosophy of transitioning...

If you die on your first flight in such a ship using such a technique, perhaps
small comfort can be (briefly) obtained from the knowledge flap (mis-)use
wasn't the proximate cause of death. :-)

I have flown

neither,but I think if you spin either your first action is to select
negative flap.

Again, this advice may be OK (as far as it goes), perhaps even in the Pilot's
Operating Handbook (I don't know)...but not without some caveats. The devil -
as always - is in the details...

The first *2* flapped ships I transitioned to *had* no negative flaps (or, any
spoilers, either). And while in neither one did I ever experience an
inadvertent 'departure from controlled flight', in both the best (IMHO)
potential-overspeed-avoidance device in their bag of tricks had such a thing
happened and startled/scared me into not 'simply'/immediately reducing the AoA
(which worked every time I used it) would have been to *'2nd-immediately'*
roll/pump on ALL the flaps. Sure this would have had the short-term effect of
increasing the wing's effective AoA..but so what, as neither ship could
'reasonably' be induced to exceed max-flap/maneuvering speeds with 'em full
down. It would've bought time to sort things out without eating vast vertical
gobs of airspace or zooming above maneuvering speed.

So - is it preferable to 'inadvertently spin down through a thermal gaggle' in
an AS-W 20 and recover at high-ish speeds with negative flap, or, to spiral
down 'perhaps somewhat stalled' but vertically somewhat slower with full
flaps? (This is not a trick question.)

My vote is to avoid the situation in the first place. This'll work in the
LS-6, too. :-)

Regards,
Bob W.

P.S. Apologies for treading so far out onto this particular discussional ice,
but I must've 'felt a need'...!

Well said it is always best to avoid the situation in the first place,
but there is also no substitute for knowing proper
recovery technique when it does happen.
To answer Johns question about my experience, let me first say that I
have just under 100 hours in the 2-33.
That being said I have no intention to go out ,buy a high performance
glass ship, and go soaring with the
thought that I will just get the hang of it in a few hours of flight.
My intentions are to purchase the glider now during the winter months
to "hopefully" fly after at least 6 more months of active gliding
starting in the spring. I was planning to get a few more hours in the
2-33 first, especially after 6 months of no flying(it snows up here in
northern Indiana),I would want to be refreshed in the trainer
. After that I plan to transition to the Clubs 1-36 glider for a while
and then get some additional hours in a 2 place glass ship. Not sure
when I will actually be ,ready to fly the new one, I don't know how I
could put a minimum hours requirement on it. I was leaving it up to my
confidence level and abilities to determine when the time would be
right. We have some excellent instructors at our glider port who will
always keep a watchful eye out.
I am very competitive and welcome the increased complexity and
challenge of a flapped ship. I am looking forward to cross county
flights and eventually competition. Am I sound in my thinking, or am I
out in left field?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

- In my opinion, you should first do the fiberglass transition before
you even look at a fiberglass single seater... Then, go rent a
fiberglass singleseater and fly some more. Take a week (or more) of
vacations and travel to Arizona, California or Nevada (predicatable
good weather). Then look at flaps. Spitzers were good army training
gliders 50+ years ago and overwhelming majority of civilized world
since then successfully transitioned to sailplanes. My guess is that
you weren’t drawn to the sport because of ancient Greece. There are
numerous FBOs clubs offering fibrerglass training/transition. Just
because you might survive first couple of hours flying a fiberglass,
flapped sailplane doesn’t mean you wont have gaps in your training.
Try avoiding situations where you were wishing to be on the ground
when flying a sailplane... This should be fun, there is no reason to
expose yourself to unnecessary and easily avoidable risk.

Take a week (or more) of
vacations and travel to Arizona, California or Nevada (predicatable
good weather). Then look at flaps. Spitzers were good army training
gliders 50+ years ago and overwhelming majority of civilized world
since then successfully transitioned to sailplanes.

Don't you dare talk that way about the 524 Gullywomper, there is NO
better training glider in the world! You DO have the money. Right?

-p

glider12321 wrote:
I couldn't agree more that it's vital to get glass time.

Vital? Maybe not. If you can handle an all metal B-4, then glass should
not present a problem. At least, it didn't for me.

Tony, LS6-b "6N"

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:22:53 -0800, Eric Greenwell
wrote:


I'm under the opposite impression! I found it very forgiving. My
personal experience is 1500 hours in an ASW 20C and never a stall, spin,
or even an incipient spin that wasn't intentional. That's with the CG
about 75% of the range.

The 20 is very sensitive to the leading edge radius of the outer wing
panels.
When I refinished the 20 of my club I made the leading edge a little
sharper - the 20 gained A LOT performance (suddenly it could keep up
with the latest LS-6 and outran the ASW-27 at speeds over 100 kts),
but got significantly less forgiving if it was stalled with flap
setting 4.

I'd say that each 20 flies a little different - the 20 is incredibly
sensitive to the slightest airfoil variation.

Two years ago I flew a 20C that was incredibly docile - I coluld
easily thermal it at 41 kts with flaps 4 - the 20 of my club would
have already spun at that speed...



Andreas

On Feb 4, 1:33*am, BruceGreeff wrote:
Lesson learned is that it is far better to learn on something a little
higher performance - but if you are solo in such a low performance old
lady - you will need some transition training.

I'm not an instructor but I've taken dozens of friends/relatives on
their first glider flight, almost all in either a Janus (original,
flying elevator), Grob Twin Astir, or DG1000, and let them try the
controls.

Pretty much everyone can at least "keep it between 50 and 60" in a
straight line right from the start, and often in a 90 degree turn too.
It does help in the Janus to put on 1 notch (6 degrees) of flap, which
makes it handle similarly to the Grob.

Everyone who has learned to fly at our club in the past several years
has done it in the DG1000 and only the DG1000. I don't think there
have been any problems except persuading them to get out of the DG and
into a PW5 for beginning cross country exploring...

At 03:05 04 February 2011, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Feb 4, 1:33=A0am, BruceGreeff wrote:
Lesson learned is that it is far better to learn on something a little
higher performance - but if you are solo in such a low performance old
lady - you will need some transition training.

I'm not an instructor but I've taken dozens of friends/relatives on
their first glider flight, almost all in either a Janus (original,
flying elevator), Grob Twin Astir, or DG1000, and let them try the
controls.

Pretty much everyone can at least "keep it between 50 and 60" in a
straight line right from the start, and often in a 90 degree turn too.
It does help in the Janus to put on 1 notch (6 degrees) of flap, which
makes it handle similarly to the Grob.

Everyone who has learned to fly at our club in the past several years
has done it in the DG1000 and only the DG1000. I don't think there
have been any problems except persuading them to get out of the DG and
into a PW5 for beginning cross country exploring...

I haven't read all 42 postings so perhaps someone has already said this,
but my understanding is that the 20 is very reluctant to spin, except in
landing configuration, ie flaps and wheel down. However in 4 years of
flying one, nearly always at 16.6 meters, it never once attempted an
inadvertant spin entry.
Dave