Puchacz reviews

At 12:36 27 September 2012, cuflyer wrote:
Hello All,

I am looking for real world reviews of the Puchacz (or the newer Perkoz)
in the club / instructional environment.
How do they hold up to daily use/abuse?
Maintenance issues?
How are they for ab-initio?
Truth to the spin-eager rep?
Any bad habits?

Thanks,
Tim

Let me start by saying that I like the Puchacz very much. About 4000
instructional flights and over 1000 hours in them. Perhaps they have been
bettered now, but I always claimed that it was the best training glider
available, it would do exactly what the pilot told it to do. One exception,
that in spite of it's reputation, pre-solo pilots had difficulty making it
spin.
They hold up well in a club use/abuse situation, but a few issues.
Wheelbrakes are poor design and can stick on. I've known 2 wheels on Puchs
being towed on the ground, explode due to extreme overheating. Better to
change to Tost wheels.
U/C bungees were poor quality, we changed to UK supply.
Aileron and elevator drive connections will eventually wear.
Trim wires occasionally break, but easily replaced.
Tailplanes are a fiddle to put on, but normally you don't do it very often.
You have to learn the technique.
We have used them for many years as ab initio trainers and for first solo.
In my personal experience, I have never had an unexpected departure, though
there have been spin in accidents. But there have also been with Oly 2bs
and Skylarks. What is the point of training pilots in gliders that will not
spin, then putting them in single seaters that will?
They seem almost unaffected by rain, quite an asset. In rough, turbulent
conditions I'd rather be in a Puch than anything. Excellent brakes. Very
good visibility.
There is a Dick Johnson flight test, and Dean Carswell did further spinning
tests (1994). It is the only glider I'm aware of where they got a better
L/D than the manufacture claimed, 32 as opposed to 30.
Dave