Wanted: Friendly Single-Seater for PSU Soaring Club

Hey All,

The Penn State Soaring club is searching for a friendly single-seater for our club members to fly. Currently, we lease an ASK-13 from Tom Knauff and Doris Grove, and the Collegiate Soaring Association lends us a Russia AC-4C and a 2-33 project (currently being restored by our club members under the expert tutelage of Mike Robison).

We make very good use of "our" equipment: we recently had three members pass their private checkrides, and the Russia was flown in the Region 3 competition this summer. However, our eccentric collection of gliders raises a few issues as we continue to grow.

We have begun by introducing our members to the concept of "aviation for fun" (beyond intensive training)--flying the ridge after classes, thermalling with flocks of hawks, retrieves, etc... However, we have decided that we could boost retention further by having a single-seat glider friendly enough for student pilots to strap on with shirt-tail still in hand, as a bridge between the trainers and higher performance.

What do we have in mind? Basically anything metal and docile--1-23, 1-26, 1-34, L-33, B-4, etc... We watch wings and wheels pretty religiously, but we were wondering if there was anything else out there "unlisted."

Thanks,

Phil Chidekel, John Bird, Evan Harshbarger, and Len Metkowsi
PSU Soaring Club Leadership

philchdkl *at* gmail.com