In the many years I have owned and instructed in an ASK-21 I have found it to be the most delightfully easy glider to enter, fly, soar, ground handle and teach students to fly. It looks as modern as any other much younger glider design, so appears encouraging to visitors. It has zero flying vices so a first solo is not a terrifying experience for the instructor who watches relaxed, confident his student cannot spin, can easily correct an overshoot, on their first solo. It has no ADs, so annual maintenance is a breeze. What other 2-seater is there that has been in production for 30+ years and still has a manufacturing waiting list? It is simple a first class piece of work.
A few years ago the US Airforce bought 5 ASK-21s to teach spinning to their fighter pilots and invented the external tail weight "spin kit" (now provided by the factory), that makes learning about spinning identical for any weight of pilots. It enters the spin slowly, rotates without bunting and comes out in true/traditional recovery style, important for low-hours pilots to be able to observe and learn, and with a minimum loss of height. The RAF has a couple of ASK-21s that have exceeded 17,000 hours - without incident, or major repair. There is no other 2-seater with this record! When a few more gliders reach 15,000hrs-18,000hrs LBA will undoubtedly increase the life to 21,000hrs - 24,000hrs - the original limit requested by Schleicher. Regards Michael Shirley
_______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
