LAK 17B FES first impressions

After importing this 18m electric powered glider from New Zealand, and an unsuccessful initial flight, this flight delivered time and experience to enjoy this great aircraft.

[@FESGlider]

Its been quite a journey for you to get to this stage, looking forward to meeting up over the glorious Darling Downs!

[@alistairdancepmm]

good video, but really doesn't need the music

[@bogdanrotaru6101]

so what are your impressions?

[@WidgeeWedgee]

Hi bogdan, I'm going to do a 1 year video, hopefully soon, now that I've got close to 100 hours in it. I'll try and give a good summary over and above comments in this video.

[@nerome619]

What was the cost of the glider?

[@josephfreeman5289]

if you have to ask you cant afford it. transportation, storage, maintance, etc will all cost more than the glider

[@charliejordan971]

​@josephfreeman5289 bit of a wanky thing to say... the guy could be genuinely interested in gliding, have plenty of cash, asks an innocent question and gets that kind of response - I wonder why gliding struggles to attract more new pilots! Also, you're wrong about the other aspects costing more than the glider.

[@WidgeeWedgee]

Hi @nerome619, a glider, second hand, good enough to fly in some competitions can be bought for as little as US$10k. But if moving up in to a very competitive field start thinking 100k to 400k new. A lot of fun can be had in the lower end gliders, making it a relatively inexpensive sport after initial purchase. Usually flying club owned gliders is very cost effective. You could be flying a US$100k glider for as little as US$400 a year on a club subscription.

[@lautoka63]

@@WidgeeWedgee Absolutely correct. I'm in a syndicate, but one of our sons flies club gliders (a lot) and it can be superb value. It took me decades to own my own glider; club gliders are there to help people fly affordably. Our club's policy meant that I flew with one of our summer instructors for over 3 hours last week and paid (aerotow included) less than NZD200.

[@MarcoNierop]

@@WidgeeWedgee Exactly.. I am a member of a gliding club in the Netherlands, most members do not own their own glider and are happily flying on the clubs gliders, some of them are modern high performance ships, capable of flying competitions and large cross country flights. We pay a lump sum contribution to the club, and then we can fly as much as we want on all gliders we have, if you got the approval for that. We have a winch operation on our field, and we also organize gliding vacations to Germany to fly large cross country flights. I have a Mini Nimbus myself since 2006 which was built in 1977, at the time I bought it together with a flying buddy for 22.000 Euro's so $11.000 Euro's each, but now I have it completely for myself, as my flying buddy cought a medical issue and cant fly anymore. For its time it was a very advanced modern, fiberglass glider with flaps and a very effective airbrake system making short field landings a breeze. I still fly competitions in clubclass and are quite succesful at that.. Maintenance we do in winter, and we have a couple technical inspectors who can do the Anual Technical review of the aircraft, as a Pilot owner I can do a lot of the maintenance myself, this all keeps the costs down. So the fun/performance to money ratio doesnt really get better with this one. BUT, I am looking for an upgrade to enjoy the performance of today's performance gliders with the capability to self launch using a small but powerful electric motor, that retracts in the back of the fuselage behind the wings, so not a FES like with the LAK in this video... With my age the occasional outlanding and finding people to standby is getting more and more cumbersome... I know this will cost a lot of money, I may look at 15 times the value of my Mini Nimbus, but in a few years I have the money, so why not spend it on this priceless joy I get out of gliding.