I guess not many of you have read this article, or had not read it when you replied to the original post. Doesn't the guy say
"For pilots used to low cost modern varios with large LCD screens, integrated GPS, loggers and glide computers, the instruments in sailplanes are very retro... So you must learn to appreciate period aircraft. On balance that's a very good thing. There's little point in learning to drive in a Ferrari and then graduating to a Combi van." It's not a claim that HG instruments are better, just different. And for do we really think training in a DG 1000 is better than a Blanik or a Poopateck? After the Lord Mayor comes the dung cart. Is the new pilot going to go solo in the DG or the K6? I've flown a sailplane listening to the audio of a hang gliding vario while occasionally looking at the (inaccurate) needle of the glider's own vario. Since most of the sensations in a thermal are through the seat of your pants, does it really matter if the needle on the vario resolves to 0.05 kts up, or 0.5? Are thermal cores that steady? There's been a heap of traffic on this list about PDAs. Well in my opinion, the latest generation of hang gliding varios look a heap more powerful and convenient and easy to use than this. Glider pilots in general have a terrific ability to be sucked down the technology tunnel and miss why we go gliding in the first place. To have FUN! So does it matter if you are not flying the latest 60:1 carbon fibre glider? Obviously not, or the average age of gliders in this country would be younger than 25 years and nobody would fly Libelles and Cirruses. Personally, the most fun I have had this year was in a T31 with my head in the air. Do you have more fun scratching around a 750 km triangle in a 60:1 glider than in a 14 :1 glider? Are you better for doing this than someone like Wolf Hirth or Phillip Wills flying a few hundred kms (in a straight line)? I think not. In fact I would guess that both pilots had a similar amount of fun... or maybe the pilot in the lower performing glider had more... At the HG worlds last month, there was a task of over 280 kms. I am sure that Lillienthal would have appreciated that. He would have appreciated the 300 kms declared triangle done by Gerolf Heinrichs just before Christmas this year. I've flown paragliders, hang gliders and sailplanes. Guess what? It's all just gliding. Each has its own attractions. You might infer from the fact that there are probably three times as many paraglider pilots as sailplane pilots that paragliders were more fun. Certainly the anarchic ability to launch where you want, when you want, with your own portable low-cost aircraft has a certain attraction, especially for generation Y-ers. But our man was not a generation Y-er... not if he had spent 30 years hang gliding. In fact he'd probably be counted as an old fart like most glider pilots. I think it's odd that in the main, the comments made about this article in this newsgroup were negative. That's OK if there are enough glider pilots for the next 20 years. But there are not. Gliding desperately needs more. Why can't these come from people who already have shown a dedication to gliding? Like hang and paraglider pilots. Welcome them in! And on a closing note.... Having spent the last week deep in the guts of a Blanik, my thought is that if the Wright brothers had invented one of these, the world would have beat a hasty retreat to the simple and elegant solution of weight shift control. In the time it takes to remove and replace a flap, you could build several hang gliders! Think about it. No weight and balance. No spins. No control surfaces. Nothing to grease. The entire airframe costing around the same as a glider canopy. And I'm not even going to get into the relative debate on safety. D McD. _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
