My thoughts below...
The Cirrus SR20/22 people though reckon if you are going to buy one of
their aircraft and you can't fly, that you may as well train in it
and do 100 hours before flying solo in it. Then you'll have your
licence and enough hours to get insurance on it to fly it solo. I
can't think of a good reason not to do that.
The cost of paying the instructor to sit next to you for 100 hours? I
suppose if you're buying one, you could afford that!
Putting a motor in the K21 for training is good. I wouldn't be too
confident about that rotary motor though with the service history in
Australia over the last few years. I suspect you could buy 3 Jabs for
one ASK21Mi and servicing would be cheaper too. Maybe a 2200 Jab
engine on a fixed pylon on a K21 would work for training.
I'm not too confident about any motor, and I don't think it wise to be,
I'd much rather be in a motor-glider with an engine failure than an
ultralight (and I've had two engine failures in a low-performance
ultralight, it's kinda like flying a brick). The Jabiru engines have
had a terrible run lately, ours has been having major issues, to the
point where we are ready to trade it in, hoping that the replacement
engine won't be another lemon! Our earlier Jab had issues too, but was
fixable, the current one continues to give trouble after two rebuilds in
about 1000 hours...
BTW Jabs fly just like gliders. Adverse yaw and rudder co-ordination
required. I flew one on Sunday and the owner let me land it.
If you are training glider pilots in one you'd think about tailoring
the training towards gliding techniques. Lots of steep turn practice
during upper air work, nice tight circuits etc.
True about the flying characteristics. I understand how a very
experienced pilot like yourself could easily switch from one to the
other - especially going from gliders to the Jabiru, because to be a
glider pilot in the first place you would be, in my opinion, a much
better pilot than someone who only trained in power. I did it the other
way and found it a challenge, also because I'd done so few hours in only
3 ultralight types before I started gliding. In the end I joined a
winch-club so that I could do plenty of cheap circuits to get the hang
of the gliders. I'm really glad that I did the winch training - it
really taught me so much more.
Going solo should not be the aim....
That's why I advocate ultralights for landing practice at least and
high performance gliders for gliding training. There should be no
hurry to go solo. There's lots to learn and enjoy in high performance
soaring. I doubt those really interested in soaring would mind doing
it dual right up to and including cross countries as long as it was
fun. The popularity of the Duo Discus, including significant private
ownership of them and other high performance 2 seaters seems to be
evidence that this is correct. Schleichers didn't expect to sell 250
ASH25 did they?
I agree, for an early pilot to do plenty of good cross-country coaching
flights would build confidence and interest in the sport, perhaps this
sort of focus would help keep them in the sport. But there's also a
huge confidence boost in going solo.
Regards,
Kym Z.
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