glider ride business - practical? bad idea?

On Feb 7, 5:14*pm, DRN wrote:
[snip]
Clearly you need an Antares 20E !
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"www.nadler.com

Certainly meets the "get your check book out" bit ;-)


Darryl

"Darryl Ramm" wrote in message
...

Get to the point of flying some high performance single seaters cross
country by yourself and lead/follow with your mentor. If all you have
flown is a Blanik and and say went off an brought a Stemme you will
have gone from a Volkswagon Beetle to a Mac truck and have missed the
Porsche Turbo handling of a 15m or 18m class glider. It would be a
shame to buy a Mac truck if what you really wanted was that Turbo but
never bothered to test drive one. You similarly might be completely
frustrated with a lower-end touring class motorglider with L/D of the
low-mid 30:1's if what you really wanted was an 18m ship with L/D ~
50:1 and an ability to stick the nose down and really go places fast.
You won't know until you've flown more types.

Darryl Ramm
ASH-26E Driver (but I fly real gliders as well)."

I agree with Darryl, save for the Mack truck reference in the above snippet.
Like Darryl, I own an ASH-26E, and before that a Stemme S10-VT. If the 26E
be a sports car (and it is), then the Stemme is a luxury performance sedan.
Sure the Stemme is heavier in aileron response and slower in roll, as you'd
expect from a big span two place ship. While not spritely in roll, the
Stemme makes up with stellar climb and cruise performance under power, far
in excess of any other two-place motor glider of similar L/D I'm aware of.
Turbocharged and intercooled, it'll keep right on briskly climbing to the
flight levels if that's your pleasure (makes saw-tooth a breeze). It will
stow in a T-hangar, power cruise at 125+ knots, taxi out and launch in 35
knot winds in conditions that would see a regular glider packed away in its
box. It can also operate out of busy towered airports where a more
conventional glider would be unwelcome. Other adjectives come to mind, none
involve trucks.

Darryl's right in that it's hard, maybe near impossible, to make a go of a
ride business using a high performance motorglider such as the Stemme. I
know of three who've tried.

bumper
Minden, NV
Purveyor of Quiet Vents ($6) and MKIII "high tech" Yaw Strings ($10) to the
unwashed masses.
In the spirit of non-partisanship, I'll also sell them to clean masses - -
same price.

On Feb 7, 10:18*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Feb 7, 5:14*pm, DRN wrote:
[snip]

Clearly you need an Antares 20E !
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"www.nadler.com

Certainly meets the "get your check book out" bit ;-)

Darryl

Also easiest to operate with single power-lever, and
fabulous handling makes it very easy to fly...
A lot more forgiving and less fuss than other
motor-gliders !

See ya, Dave "YO electric"

Dave,

Also easiest to operate with single power-lever, and
fabulous handling makes it very easy to fly...
A lot more forgiving and less fuss than other
motor-gliders !

See ya, Dave "YO electric"


,

The Antares is impressive in looks, performance, and especially in
engineering . . .

But in a glider ride business scenario, how many customers could you take up
to 3,000+ feet in a row on a no-lift day? Or to 1.5K on a day with good
lift? Wouldn't the need to charge batteries be a hassle in that application?

bumper

On Feb 8, 9:08*am, "bumper" wrote:
Dave,

Also easiest to operate with single power-lever, and
fabulous handling makes it very easy to fly...
A lot more forgiving and less fuss than other
motor-gliders !

See ya, Dave "YO electric"

,

The Antares is impressive in looks, performance, and especially in
engineering . . .

But in a glider ride business scenario, how many customers could you take up
to 3,000+ feet in a row on a no-lift day? Or to 1.5K on a day with good
lift? Wouldn't the need to charge batteries be a hassle in that application?

bumper

Ah Bumper, I think the single seat might be more of an issue. I don't
think Dave was advocating the 20E for a ride business, just a a
motorglider to purchase.

But then I'm amused by talking to talk to ride operators and hear
about passengers with no flight experience arriving thinking *they*
are going to fly the glider by themselves, maybe take the girlfriend
up for a quick flight. Yes this really happens.

Darryl

"Darryl Ramm"
Ah Bumper, I think the single seat might be more of an issue. I don't
think Dave was advocating the 20E for a ride business, just a a
motorglider to purchase.

But then I'm amused by talking to talk to ride operators and hear
about passengers with no flight experience arriving thinking *they*
are going to fly the glider by themselves, maybe take the girlfriend
up for a quick flight. Yes this really happens.

Darryl


Dammit! I just hate it when the brain cell that dies is the one I happen to
be using at the moment.

Somewhere in the back of my feeble old mind I just knew it was a single
seater!

bumper
QV 'n MKIII - - the best, cheapest toys you can by for your glider on its
birthday.

This is an entertaining thread! Right down my alley, been in the ride
business now for 40+ years. Switched from mutiple gliders and
towplanes to one selflauncher 16 years ago, then a Grob Twin IIISL.
There were several reasons:
semi retirement, airport parking- taxiing, pilots etc. Self launching
is the future! I am always wondering why not more com operators do
more of it or convert. Most likely cost.
As for the US-Russian, he has logical ideas, also a big family. Busy
guy! Good training there with the Russians!
He might not want to rush into things, might end up going back to that
Mtn valley in Russia. Lots of rich Russians now that might want to
pick up Soaring fast for money, rather than clubs.

It takes a resort nearby to have a good ride business, possibly an
interstate highway, but a resort is better. Yeah and defenitely a two
seater! Bumper, you are not the only one. But of course there are com
operators that also into teaching and rentals. For that the Antares
might work? One could go on and on!

Think Up!

Soarski

Bumper - I've contacted Sam as you suggested and hope to have a tel talk with him this week. I'm planning a road trip to the US this summer to find a home and have already started prepping my wife for a thorough look at the Tahoe area. That will be the kicker; she thinks we're going to live in or near a big city! I've explained to her that American cities are full of roving gangs and involve a sort of Mad Max II lifestyle. On the serious side I did read a rather bad report of teenage meth use in the Carson Valley area. That's disturbing. See, here in Kazakhstan anybody with something like a meth lab is simply executed, end of story, problem over. Trial lasts about 2 hrs. I sort of like that. Thanks for letting me know about Sam.

Originally Posted by

This is an entertaining thread! Right down my alley, been in the ride
business now for 40+ years. Switched from mutiple gliders and
towplanes to one selflauncher 16 years ago, then a Grob Twin IIISL.
There were several reasons:
semi retirement, airport parking- taxiing, pilots etc. Self launching
is the future! I am always wondering why not more com operators do
more of it or convert. Most likely cost.
As for the US-Russian, he has logical ideas, also a big family. Busy
guy! Good training there with the Russians!
He might not want to rush into things, might end up going back to that
Mtn valley in Russia. Lots of rich Russians now that might want to
pick up Soaring fast for money, rather than clubs.

It takes a resort nearby to have a good ride business, possibly an
interstate highway, but a resort is better. Yeah and defenitely a two
seater! Bumper, you are not the only one. But of course there are com
operators that also into teaching and rentals. For that the Antares
might work? One could go on and on!

Think Up!

Soarski

Soarski, I am actually in Kazakhstan. But since it was a colony in the Russian and then the Soviet Empire for so long many of the same traits apply. Russians, having only recently become affluent, are still in a rather immature phase of capitalism: huge, ostentatious houses, Porsche Carreras, Land Rovers, peroxide girlfriends half their ages with beauty shelf lives of about 5 years, vacations at the usual expensive but tired Euro hotspots. Ok, some rich Russians are into aviation but only very few and they are into flashing expensive aircraft. Virtually, no one here even understands what a sailplane it much less has a desire to fly one. Soaring is far too esoteric for their current stage of development. I don’t think there’s much of an immediate future for soaring here. The people keeping the sport alive are virtually destitute and doing it out of shear enthusiasm. They are keeping their old fleets of Wilga tow planes and Blaniks alive by cannibalism and duct tape! At the Fall of the USSR out of shear desperation many Clubs sold off their higher performance ships to european scavengers. Now they regret it. There used to be 5 state funded clubs in Kaz, now there is one and it will die when the 2 - 3 aging instructors bite the dust.

"tienshanman" wrote in message
...

That's disturbing. See,
here in Kazakhstan anybody with something like a meth lab is simply
executed, end of story, problem over. Trial lasts about 2 hrs. I sort
of like that. Thanks for letting me know about Sam.

--
tienshanman

Tienshanman,

As a former cop, I like the "get tough on crime" approach too! And while the
criminal justice system in the US may not be as quick and decisive as it is
in Kazakhstan, compared to much of the US, Nevada comes down hard on bad
guys.

I moved to Minden, NV about 6 years ago from just north of San Francisco.
One of the things you may notice about more rural areas, such as the Carson
Valley, is that folks seem less harried and overall friendlier than those
who live in crowded conditions. You'll also notice there are a lot more
gliders here than in the big city!

bumper