That's why I flew a Boomerang for many years :) -Cath
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Caleb White Sent: Friday, 16 December 2005 11:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Aus-soaring] Wood is Good! Hi Folks, As a Uni. student with a relatively modest flying budget I realised that for about the same expenditure I could do only a small amount of flying in a hired glass ship or as much flying as I wanted in older wooden aircraft. The economics combined with the beaut handling, feel and smell of the older ships made this a very simple decision. Wood ships these days cost around about as much as an all singing all dancing flight computer and have a significantly better L/D! Caleb White, Proud Kookaburra and Super Goose Owner/Driver -----Original Message----- From: "Coleman, Ben \(RTCA\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." <[email protected]> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:15:52 +1100 Subject: [Aus-soaring] Cost of Ownership (was: numbers) At my club I believe a culture of private ownership impacts the operation. We have two single seaters, a Junior and a Jantar, both purchased new some 20 years ago. When a member progresses to XC, the message is "time to buy your own glider!". After turning up a couple of times intending to go XC and having the appearance of other members who want to share the aircraft kill those plans, it becomes apparent that owning an aircraft will be the only way to get satisfactory XC flights when desired. We have around 16 privately owned gliders at the club. If the low-utilisation owners rented club machines, we could have a fleet of modern planes (Discus CS, 304CZ etc) of which 5 or 6 would probably satisfy flying requirements. We could avoid building new hangers, too. >From what I have seen, Kingaroy rents a Discus CS to members for about what I rent the old Jantar (yet I am told the Jantar doesn't pay for itself). What are they doing differently from my club? I also hear the argument that there is no real performance difference between a new glider and the Jantar (and besides, I can just fly a shorter distance for the same challenge). They miss the point, in my opinion, that the gliders for hire need to be accessible (Jantar has a bad reputation for ergonomics and spin behaviour with some) and most improtantly desirable. Performance is secondary. Unfortunately I'm not confident of gaining agreement with any of these points and even less so of finding a way to make it happen. Meanwhile I'm looking around for my first glider. Regards, Ben Coleman CMcD wrote: > > > I can't help but agree with Wayne. > I have been told that Boomerangs or KA6's were around about > the cost of a > family car when new. > Those around my club are used to my trite rhetorical saying: > > "Why can't the manufacturers build some Commodore and Falcon > type gliders > not all Rolls Royces, Mercedes & BMW's?". > _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
