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

The original gel on my 1980 202 is still I’m excellent condition, was a bit yellowed, but I was able to get rid of that by light sanding.
The schwaballac gel coat of that era was very good indeed. Ive seen vorgelat gelled gliders needing a refinish after 10 years.
As long as schwaballac is not cracked, which is rare, it can be safely painted over without total removal, Vogelat must be completely removed.

The original LS3 have the reputation of a slightly better performance than the LS3a. The LS3 polar measured by idaflieg is about equal to an ASW20. There were several sets of wing molds being used, perhaps one of them was less accurate. This info comes from the LS-book which has been publishes a few years ago.

LS3 are quite heavy, in the 290-300kg region. But that's not a big problem if it comes with a good trailer. 3a have about 20-30kg less weight. This difference in weight comes from split flaperons without lead ballast and a different construction of the wing spar. The spar caps on the 3a are directly under the wings outer laminate which allowed lighter spar caps being used. In the LS3, the spar caps are under the foam sandwich laminate. That requires more material in the caps to be used for the same strength, but prevents any warpage to show in the wing surface.

The LS3 fuselage is structurally very similar to an LS1-f whereas the LS4 more ore less took over the fuselage from the LS3a with the new empennage. For that reason an original LS3 (non -a) cannot be modified with an integral tail wheel.

We currently have an LS3 (winner of last year's US Sports Class Nationals btw) in the shop for a wing refinish. We are working on smoothing the inevitable spar flat spot and also looking at the leading edge. We put the CNC cut templates on a couple of weeks back, and the wings are overall remarkably good for a 40 year old glider. There's some work to do, but the basic glass is really close to spec.

Assuming that whoever did the refinish on the LS3 you may be looking at (if it's JJ, it's gonna be good), then you can figure that you'll get a glider that's 98% of the outright performance of the ASW-20 for 25% less $$. That's a pretty good tradeoff.



On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 4:52:12 PM UTC-4, wrote:
The original LS3 have the reputation of a slightly better performance than the LS3a. The LS3 polar measured by idaflieg is about equal to an ASW20. There were several sets of wing molds being used, perhaps one of them was less accurate. This info comes from the LS-book which has been publishes a few years ago.

LS3 are quite heavy, in the 290-300kg region. But that's not a big problem if it comes with a good trailer. 3a have about 20-30kg less weight. This difference in weight comes from split flaperons without lead ballast and a different construction of the wing spar. The spar caps on the 3a are directly under the wings outer laminate which allowed lighter spar caps being used. In the LS3, the spar caps are under the foam sandwich laminate. That requires more material in the caps to be used for the same strength, but prevents any warpage to show in the wing surface.

The LS3 fuselage is structurally very similar to an LS1-f whereas the LS4 more ore less took over the fuselage from the LS3a with the new empennage. For that reason an original LS3 (non -a) cannot be modified with an integral tail wheel.

Lotta chatter about the LS-3. For the record, the LS-3 and LS-3a are two different animals. As someone noted, the original LS-3 tested equal to the ASW 20 in performance, FWIW. Most LS-3s now suffer from flat spots over the spar that hurt high-speed performance, though not climb. I owned one for 13 years and it's lovely to fly. I did profile out the flat spot and it ran with the '20s and Venti of the day just fine. Most won't, however, which is where the comments arise. The wings are, indeed, heavy (and awkward because they're trailing-edge heavy) but I solo rigged mine most of the time using the factory Komet trailer. Pay attention because trailers of that vintage may well need work.

The LS-3a split the flaperon into two pieces and is lighter. Early LS-3a models seemed to go well with later ones not quite so good. The explanation was thought to be thicker-than-spec airfoil cause by slight wing mold warping as production continued. I'm told it flies as well as the original LS-3. Some of them came with wingtip extensions.

As many have noted, the finish is very important, as is the trailer. You can upgrade instruments over time, especially with all the used stuff coming out of cockpits these days. Upgrading a complete finish and/or trailer is a lot more expensive/effort.

I'd pay attention to UH's advice about looking for a good Standard Class ship as an alternative. I've owned my ASW 24 for 27 years and still love it. It's a little more work to land short than my LS-3 which, in turn, was more work than our ASW 20. But they all come down. They're all fun to fly and go well. I've frequently flown against 15M flapped gliders at the regional level straight up. And now with the slight handicapping available in the Standard Class, the older gliders are very competitive.

Chip Bearden

Maybe it's because im shopping a similar price range but it seems there's not much worth persuing among the aircraft you've listed in the U.S. Segelflug.de is what the europeans use for posting gliders for sale. You'll get a better value even with the transportation and exchange rate. Most of the gliders over here at that price point are pretty well neglected. On the other hand if you can live with a slightly lower performance glider, you can find Cirrus, Ls1, and Libelles at a lower price point in much better shape. For 20-30k you have to sacrifice at least one of the following: finish, customer support/parts, performance...forget about instrumentation it's not there.
Look on the bright side, glider manufacturers are buiding more motor gliders than pure these days and soaring in the States is in steep decline, soon we'll have a market flush with once expensive self launchers!

Having been in a similar situation over the winter with a price range up to $45K, I actually chose a cheaper alternative, Jantar Std 2.

Reasons being no gelcoat, very sturdy, awesome spoilers (outlanding fields here in the northeast aren't huge) and having some time in one.

I also like the reclined position.

I'm around 100h mark so it'll be a while until the ship will be holding me back from making awesome.

I did consider Ls-3, Pegase, DG-200, HP-14/18, Ventus C 17.6. At the time there were no ASW-20's that seemed like a good deal.

Seems to be some decent deals for westeners on wingsandwheels. DG-20(2/0), (Open) Cirrus and Kestrel would be on top of my list to look at if I were looking out west right now. Save some money now for tows and get a 3rd gen glass ship in 5-10 years for way cheaper than what they go for now.

On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 11:46:26 AM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:

Here's the math for an ASW-20:

- Moderately crazed ASW-20 in otherwise fair shape. $25K
- Full refinish at retail north of $25K (being generous here)
- Total cost $50K (forget about all the other stuff - instruments, trailer, etc.)

Now, go look at the classifieds. Several nice to very nice ASW-20s for mid $30K.

So a fair price for a "Moderately crazed ASW-20 in otherwise fair shape" would be $8K. Invest $25-30K in repair and you'd get a good glider for $33-38K. Buyer deserves some compensation for the hassle, risk and delay of refurbishment.

People who're setting unreasonably high prices for their poor condition gliders are hurting themselves, and hurting the sport by making it harder for young people to get into the sport.

I suggest that people who want to get into the sport start offering a reasonable price for trashed gliders $5-8K. Sellers (or the executors of their estates) will eventually come to their senses.

This thread makes me want to go find a LS

On Wed, 3 Apr 2019 07:20:42 -0700 (PDT), Steve Leonard
wrote:

On Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at 1:53:19 AM UTC-5, krasw wrote:
ASW 20 was ahead of it's time and in reality belongs to same generation as Ventus/LS6 (except that final bit of wing loading). ... All Wortmann FX170-profiled gliders are older generation performance-wise. If it rains or you get bugs on leading edge, you fall out of sky like an anvil.

But, the 20 uses the older (and maybe better?) 62K153/131 family. Maybe that is why it was ahead of its time? Because it used an older airfoil section. Like its big brothers, the ASW 12 and ASW 17.


Interesiting side note:

Luc Boermans recently told me that ALL his airfoils are based upon the
FX 62K-131 of the ASW-20.

The FX67 was a one-trick pony that was impossible to cure of its
extremely bad performance when wet or dirty.


Thus said: The ASW-20 and LS-3 are similar in performance as long as
they are clean and dry.

Once an LS-3 gets dirty or wet, the performance loss is drastic - the
20 hardly suffers. One clear point pro ASW-20.

Cheers
Andreas

On Wed, 3 Apr 2019 09:16:48 -0700 (PDT), Mike the Strike
wrote:

The first iteration of the ASW-20 (there never was an "a" model as such) had a very aggressive flap setting, known by many of us as the "Jesus flap". That's what you said the first time you deployed it - lots and lots of drag, big change in attitude and no extra lift. I believe that most early spin accidents with the ASW-20 resulted from the combination of rearward CG plus early deployment of full landing flap in the pattern followed by a stall/spin on turning.

Err... probably not.
The 20 is extremely tame in landing flap setting (4 and 5) due to its
extreme wing twist (both ailerons actually go up).

The only flap setting where it enters a spin is 4, the thermalling
setting.



Cheers
Andreas