Attila Bertok <<email>> writes:

Your analysis on prices is not complete. For example, the resale value of the glider is not emphasized, but it is important. Some gliders might be cheaper and people quickly realize that there is a good reason for that. Usually this time comes when they try to get rid of the bird and people avoiding it like a plague. I often hear the price-based decision argument. I guess the guys going for the cheapest gliders all drive a LADA (cheap Russian car), because that is the best price conscious decision.

I think we need to look at what we are actually paying for. Buying a high performance glider usually has three reasons, such as kicking everybody's butt on competitions, having a real potent cross country machine or showing off to one's buddies.

You mentioned that the differences are minor, and it is hard to see whether it was the pilot or the glider. I would disagree. Recently, as we frequently fly faster then 80 km/h, we see the others just falling away. And we do that a lot recently. It is pretty objective, I don't think the others would deny it. The other, non-Moyes guys usually say that it was a lucky glide, etc. But every glide? Every final glide? I think we have an "objectively" better glider.

Some companies are trying to fix their performance deficit using a few twists in their marketing by saying that they have the ultimate cross country machine (meaning: they don't perform well on comps, but it's ok for weekend warriors). Some companies don't do any R and D, just copy. In this case their prices are always going to be unbeatable, because there is nothing to recover for the non-existent R and D activity.

Why we buy a certain glider is also interesting. People tend to be emotional about the manufacturer when they making their choice. Loyalty, etc. Usually they citing that a certain manufacturer really look after them. As far as Moyes goes, it is hard to beat us in this respect. I was in the US a few months ago and I've heard from more than one pilot that our dealer, Kraig Coomber gives better service than another local US manufacturer down the road! And he is not the only one. There are people who want special attention sometimes irrespective to their performance and they are really disappointed when they are not getting it. So they look for a peer group, when they are knowingly disadvantaged, but now at least they belong. Of course, it is the other manufacturer's fault who didn't give them a special deal before by not seeing the "gift" in them.

Now about the research and development. I've read Steve Pearson's article, and I must mention that I always thought about WW as one of the innovators of our sport. This is not always a good thing, as the RamAir affair clearly shows this. Anyway, they can be proud of themselves, so we are.

There are many ideas we also had, but many of them are not in our gliders. Lever VG, etc.

In general, most manufacturers have made a certain contribution to the health and safety of the hang gliding industry, but there are companies just shamelessly copying the good ideas, or just simply waiting to see if a risky idea work out or not. This is not fair, but since there is no real money to enforce intellectual property issues it will be the same, or we just make the lawyers richer. I couldn't mention any patents relating to hang gliding, apart from the original Rogallo wing. The other comment I hear often is that today's high performance gliders are "almost" the same. Well, believe me, fine tuning something already good, and do that repeatedly is an art. And it is not simple.

Last, but not least, if you don't know why something is good or bad, then you really don't know anything. The number of people actually knowing and doing things properly in our sport are only a few. Maybe 3 or 4 for guys all up. We are lucky at Moyes in this respect, but without these people our sport wouldn't develop. Copying obviously not enough. It is like competitions. If you always just follow, you always will be maximum 100%, but not better.

Ah, our glider can also fly to the horizon! 1:15 equals 3.8 degrees, that is (almost) horizontal!