Buying LS3a or ASW20a? ~$25k cross country glider. Which one and why?

On Monday, April 1, 2019 at 12:27:41 PM UTC-7, Michael N. wrote:
On Monday, April 1, 2019 at 12:11:36 PM UTC-6, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
First questions nobody asked.......
Where are you flying?
How serious?

I can only comment on 20's........
20a, fantastic flaps......early flying season, come in very high on final, do full landing flaps and full dive brakes.......drops like a homesick brick.......
But, elevator is not auto connect.......know of a ship trashed because of this.
A 20A or C, limited to 9pounds..........fine if eastern thermals. Screwed if fast conditions.
Sucks to western thermals or ridge......trust me, I have been beat in eastern ridge in a nationals......I had local knowledge so made time on gap climbs, watched heavier gliders run by on long ridge runs. Yes, ran against "DG in a LS6" and,others.
Flying ridges or western thermals, maybe a 20B.
All the 20's can be helped with winglets.
I have my preference, but I am biased partly because I was "beta boy" on lots of testing for 20 and 24 winglets.

In your price range.....I will say a standard AS ship......partly because if you learned on a SGS, control harmony is similar.
I can't state for other glass single seaters.......

As stated before, in your price range, a flapped ship is likely borderline a rat.
Bad?.......ask Daniel on his performance on a "rat ship" I know of last year.
Crazed surface THAT IS SMOOTH can do well.
Most of a result is the "nut behind the stick".

Yep, agreed I am a nut :-)
How serious? I don't know yet, to be honest. I'd like to compete in club class when I have some time built up.
I can't afford to buy or sell gliders over and over, so my intent is "best bang for the buck" and flapped for the short field landing capabilities. I'm not afraid of the workload of flaps, as I noted I have some hours in Mooney's and other complex high performance aircraft that require concentration and planning especially on approach to land.

I will be flying mountain, as I am part time in Utah. I learned out of Minden, flying wave and mountain.
I had heard that the ASW20 (a-c) were good for mountains due to the semi-flexible wing design?

Thanks for any further feedback...
Mike

Please take all our suggestions as constructive. Doing this in two steps as others suggest may prevent a big surprise.
Mooneys aren't generally flown in steep turns at close to stall.
You will be flying a Ventus A/B or an ASW20 in those conditions, and in rough air!
If you let a Ventus A/B or ASW20 without winglets stall in a thermal it will get your attention in a hurry. It really would be best to do that after getting more experience.
When looking at performance figures only, you'll wonder why people pay so much for newer generation gliders. Much of their performance is due to user-friendliness.
Winglets, it seems especially the higher aspect ratio ones, make low speed flying more stable. A friend dinged one of his Maughmer winglets and flew the 20 without them while it was being fixed. With many hours in that glider he didn't like it.
Jim

On Monday, April 1, 2019 at 1:58:01 PM UTC-6, JS wrote:
Please take all our suggestions as constructive. Doing this in two steps as others suggest may prevent a big surprise.
Mooneys aren't generally flown in steep turns at close to stall.
You will be flying a Ventus A/B or an ASW20 in those conditions, and in rough air!
If you let a Ventus A/B or ASW20 without winglets stall in a thermal it will get your attention in a hurry. It really would be best to do that after getting more experience.
When looking at performance figures only, you'll wonder why people pay so much for newer generation gliders. Much of their performance is due to user-friendliness.
Winglets, it seems especially the higher aspect ratio ones, make low speed flying more stable. A friend dinged one of his Maughmer winglets and flew the 20 without them while it was being fixed. With many hours in that glider he didn't like it.
Jim

I definitely value the opinions being shared here.
Everyone here is likely a better, more experienced glider guider than I am. I really do appreciate the wisdom and suggestions.
So I am going to take a step back and add to my considerations, standard class gliders.
I do have the concern of buying something and then re-selling to upgrade later. I'm going into retirement shortly, and will have a nice income, but still a limited income for larger purchases. I'll never be in the position of being able to afford anything over $50k, and even that unlikely.

I was going to try and get the Pegasus or Pik 20 (I forget which) the the soaring museum had listed at a very good price around 13k but I missed that opportunity.

So maybe I should look at an ASW19 or similar. Seem like an LS4 is out of my price range.

Michael:
You will find no shortage of opinions on this forum. But - Considering your budget and age you might consider buying a better glider with a partner. There are lots of nice machines on the market in the $35-$50K range, and there is a lot to be said for sharing the expenses and the fun with a partner. You can support and retrieve each other. All of my first non-club gliders were bought with partners and all of the experiences were good. Today I own one machine myself and another one (abroad) with a partner. Just a thought.
Good luck,
Roy

Decent comment.

I can only speak for AS.......20, 24, 28, 29 for single place glass, ASK-21 for dual......not counting many SGS ships (26, 33, 34, 35, 36), but the AS's have a similar control harmony to SGS FWIW.......
Yes, AS ships with winglets (and other brands) are easier to fly than without.

A partner is likely a better way to bump up a bit.
My previous comments still apply......

On Monday, April 1, 2019 at 6:01:10 PM UTC-5, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
I can only speak for AS.......20, 24, 28, 29 for single place glass, ASK-21 for dual......not counting many SGS ships (26, 33, 34, 35, 36), but the AS's have a similar control harmony to SGS FWIW.......

I'm curious what makes you say that - the LAST ships I would describe has having control harmony similar to ANY glass ship is anything made by Schweizer!

SGS: 1-23, 1-26, 1-34, 2-22, 2-32, 2-33.

AS: 19, 20, 21

IMHO, SGS gliders range from OK if heavy (2-32, 1-23, 1-34) to twitchy in pitch but nice otherwise (1-26) to borderline unpleasant (2-22, 2-33).

But then I'm spoiled by 1000 hrs in an LS6...

Cheers,

66

On Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 9:04:06 PM UTC-6, Michael N. wrote:
I'm looking for a glider for cross country in the $25k range.

I'd like to get a flapped 15 meter, and have been doing a lot of searching and reading on the groups and have kind of narrowed my decision down to an ASW20 or LS3a

I have about 200 hours in gliders all glass, but never anything with flaps, however I also owned and have several hundred hours in a Mooney M20C so have good experience in complex aircraft that require good in flight planning for various aspects of flight.

I was also considering the following, and will list some of my reasons for weeding them out of my choice list.

Ventus B: Great performance, but my understanding from reading (no actual experience) is that they are not forgiving or maybe a better way of putting it, is they require full time attention which can be fatiguing on long flights.

DG 200 or 202, good aircraft but you have to pay annual fees just to buy parts?

Mini Nimbus: also good aircraft, just not up to the same performance level as an ASW20

That kind of leaves the ASW20 or LS3 in this price range and category. Unless I am missing something.

So which would you have and why?
I am leaning towards an ASW20 purchase, but am finding some very well equipped LS3a's in the same price range as a moderately equipped ASW20.

Assuming similar clamshell style trailers and self rigging gear, which is the better buy or which would you have and why?

Also, anyone knowing of an ASW20 or LS3 for sale not already on Wings and Wheels, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks, I know this topic has been brought up before, but I am in the final stages of preparing for a purchase before the 2019 season gets into full swing and would like to get some final advice before pulling the trigger on this purchase.

I owned an ASW-20 for 25 years; now fly an ASW-27. Never had winglets on the 20 and did not have any problem keeping up with a Ventus unless they were fully loaded with water. The only issue with the 20 is the manual hookups. Since I am older and more forgetful, I would not go back to manual hookups. The 20 is much better performance than the LS3. If you are going to do competitive flying with a full load of water, then I would go with the Ventus; however, I think to get one with a good finish you will be looking at 35K.

For recreational flying and considering the cost, I would go with the ASW-20, assuming you follow checklists and do a very thorough pre-flight control check. By the way, I flew an entire day in strong mountain conditions with out the blot in the tail of my 20!

Stu 2Z

Tom Stowers (Minden) has an LS-3a that was completely stripped, countoured and re-finished in Urethane in 2015. Decent trailer and instruments and price dropped to 28K. I would expect that ship to hold that selling price for some time to come. The 3 is the most comfortable ship I have ever flown and pleasant to fly with a light stick and good harmonics.
Hope this helps,
JJ

On Tuesday, April 2, 2019 at 1:54:57 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Tom Stowers (Minden) has an LS-3a that was completely stripped, countoured and re-finished in Urethane in 2015. Decent trailer and instruments and price dropped to 28K. I would expect that ship to hold that selling price for some time to come. The 3 is the most comfortable ship I have ever flown and pleasant to fly with a light stick and good harmonics.
Hope this helps,
JJ

I am looking at this as a candidate. Thanks

On Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 8:04:06 PM UTC-7, Michael N. wrote:
I'm looking for a glider for cross country in the $25k range.

I'd like to get a flapped 15 meter, and have been doing a lot of searching and reading on the groups and have kind of narrowed my decision down to an ASW20 or LS3a

I have about 200 hours in gliders all glass, but never anything with flaps, however I also owned and have several hundred hours in a Mooney M20C so have good experience in complex aircraft that require good in flight planning for various aspects of flight.

I was also considering the following, and will list some of my reasons for weeding them out of my choice list.

Ventus B: Great performance, but my understanding from reading (no actual experience) is that they are not forgiving or maybe a better way of putting it, is they require full time attention which can be fatiguing on long flights.

DG 200 or 202, good aircraft but you have to pay annual fees just to buy parts?

Mini Nimbus: also good aircraft, just not up to the same performance level as an ASW20

That kind of leaves the ASW20 or LS3 in this price range and category. Unless I am missing something.

So which would you have and why?
I am leaning towards an ASW20 purchase, but am finding some very well equipped LS3a's in the same price range as a moderately equipped ASW20.

Assuming similar clamshell style trailers and self rigging gear, which is the better buy or which would you have and why?

Also, anyone knowing of an ASW20 or LS3 for sale not already on Wings and Wheels, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks, I know this topic has been brought up before, but I am in the final stages of preparing for a purchase before the 2019 season gets into full swing and would like to get some final advice before pulling the trigger on this purchase.

Hi Michael: I've owned an LS-4, a Ventus C, and my current LS-6. For me there would be no choice. The LS gliders are a joy to fly. They have no bad habits; they hold tight circles easily; and on long flights they are much less fatiguing. On my third Ventus flight in turbulence I went into a high speed stall without any warning, found myself looking directly at the ground and thought I was going to die. It took me three years to fully trust the glider. The Ventus C and especially the B require constant attention to the flight controls. They do not fly themselves. Flying the Ventus will eventually make you a very good pilot, but you may not entirely enjoy the experience.

I have never flown an ASK 20, but I hear good things about them. I would avoid the 20A because it has a bad habit of spinning at low speeds. We lost a club member in such an accident. This was corrected in the 20B, and people who have them think it's a very fine glider. I'm not sure I would obsess about winglets. In the class of ships you're looking at other concerns are probably more important. Good luck in your quest!
Matt

On Tue, 2 Apr 2019 20:57:24 -0700 (PDT), "Matt Herron (Sr)"
wrote:

.... text deleted

Hi Michael: I've owned an LS-4, a Ventus C, and my current LS-6. For me there would be no choice.
The LS gliders are a joy to fly. They have no bad habits; they hold tight circles easily; and on long
flights they are much less fatiguing. On my third Ventus flight in turbulence I went into a high speed
stall without any warning, found myself looking directly at the ground and thought I was going to die.
It took me three years to fully trust the glider. The Ventus C and especially the B require constant
attention to the flight controls. They do not fly themselves. Flying the Ventus will eventually make
you a very good pilot, but you may not entirely enjoy the experience.

text deleted
Matt

Just a quick note in defense of the Ventus. After 20 years and approx
1800 hours flying a Ventus C in both flatland and mountain conditions
(mostly in 17.6m configuation), I have never experienced any
uncommanded flight motion. That said, the ship will not fly "hands
off" for very long. Note, I have not flown a Ventus B, so cannot
comment on differences between the B and C, other than that the C is
much easier to tape the wing-fuselage intersection (it has a fillet on
the fuselage).

Bob