I was talking to an instructor yesterday who was working with the RAAF cadets. I was a little surprised to see a couple of cadets flying the DG 1000 solo and asked a few questions about his experiences.
He said that he was initially against buying the DG and voted for a more heritage glider type but having flown a few hundred hours in them considered that the DG 1000 was "the best bloody training glider I have flown." He did say that fitting spin kits to gliders was a hassle that they did not need in their operations so the fact that the DG 1000 spins nicely without a kit is good. He said that the DG did not present a problem either in spinning, spin recovery or being too slippery and making speed control in the circuit difficult. Nor was it a problem in transitioning cadets from a fairly high performance 2 seater to a lower performance single seater such as the Junior and they had done 14 in the last few days. I guess it is entirely possible that cadets pick up things faster than old folk and flying a high performance glider from the outset is not so much of a problem but I doubt it. There was a time when it was thought that you could only learn to fly a hang glider by starting in a Rogallo but as time went by and people learned in higher and higher performance HGs, it was realised that slow and stable is not as important as responsive and controllable. The RAAF probably don't have the budget issues of a normal gliding club but I would think that a glider like the DG is far more what a student pilots expects to learn to fly in than a K13 or a metal glider such as the Puchatek. D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
