On Marske Designs:

The difficulty in comparing the tailless concept with the current state of
the art is that conventional tailed gliders benefit from nearly 100 years of
refinement and thousands of designs. On the other hand, even though the
tailless concept began in the first decade of the 20th century, only a
handful of tailless gliders have actually flown. No doubt if tailless
gliders had the benefit of the development history that conventional gliders
have, they would be far better than they are.

This is not criticism of tailless concept, just a statement of the facts.
Few designers want to step far beyond the current state of the art so they
copy most details of their previous designs, or those of perceived
competitors, adding a few design changes they hope will give their creation
an edge. This, in my view, has led us into a trap of diminishing returns.
In other words, the current design concept is very close to optimum. There
are no obvious opportunities to significantly improve the current design
paradigm.

Jim Marske's approach may offer a way out of this trap. Looking carefully
at the performance of the existing marske gliders one finds that they do
perform better than anyone would expect given their low aspect ratios and
wing loadings. To really answer the question, we need an all out,
composite, 15 meter tailless racer, built to the best standards, not wood
and fabric homebuilts. Contest scores will then tell the tale.

I think we all should tip our hats to the bold few who experiment with
flying wings. Put a brake on the criticism and enjoy the color and
diversity these designs bring. Jim Marske and Matt Redsell aren't heretics,
they are just experimenters having a lot of fun with their concept. I get a
lot pleasure watching their progress.

Bill Daniels

On the Schweizer 2-33 replacement for the US

I recently had the task of flying a couple of training flights with a new
CFI-G candidate in the club 2-33. My role was that of a "bad student" that
the fledgling instructor has to deal with. (If you have done this, you know
it is the most fun an instructor is allowed to have - I had to admonish this
candidate that "Oh Shit!" is not an approved part of the "Instructor
vocabulary")

It was the first time in many years that I had flown in the front seat of a
2-33, most of my 2-33 time is in the back seat. God, it was awfull! My
heart went out to my students who had suffered trying to fly the old crate.
The stick couldn't be moved to the side enough to use half the available
aileron. The trim just didn't work and the rudder pedals seemed to require
my ankles to bend backwards. One has the impression, looking at what passes
for ergonomics in the 2-33, that the designer dragged his knuckles when he
walked.

I have an interesting story to relate about a student that I taught to fly
the IS28B2 "Lark". He had no experience in any gliders therefore he didn't
know the Lark had "advanced" handling so he just learned to fly it in about
the same time it takes to learn to fly a 2-33. However, the club rules say
that students have to solo first in the 2-33. It took me 5 or 6 flights
with him in the 2-33 to "dumb him down" so that he could manage it safely -
what a waste of time.

I do not believe that there is anything that the venerable 2-33 does well
enough to justify it's preservation much less it's replacement. I have to
agree with Tim Mara that most of what a student learns in a 2-33 will have
to be "un-learned" for him to progress in soaring.

Bill Daniels