Pilot report's on DG 300/303 series?
Thiemo Gorath
Hi,
can anybody write his or her experiences regarding that aircraft?
(I'm thinking of getting one and would love to know how you feel about the
plane, how well or bad it flies,.....).
Thanks a lot,
Thiemo Gorath
__________________________________________________________________________
Thiemo Gorath private: tgo...@cal.ping.de
http://www.ping.de/~tgorath office: tgo...@pcz.uni-dortmund.de
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MikeYankee
I have a DG-300 and love it. I would buy another one in a minute, or a 303,
but that's because it takes a couple of years to get a Discus 2.
I've flown mine 1000+ hours, including one official and several unofficial
1000 km flights out of Keystone. I have landed it in fields where I might not
have been able to put another standard class sailplane so easily.
Advantages (in no particular order): 5 inch wheel with good brake, pneumatic
tailwheel, high wing-loading capability, good L/D especially at high speeds
(ridge flying), visibility, powerful spoilers, comfortable cockpit, overall
quality of construction & finish, performs well, docile behavior, powerful
controls (but ailerons are stiff), easy rigging with automatic hookups, good
value for the money, parallelogram stick.
Small dislikes: friction in ailerons, cockpit is hot in summer, lacks natural
"feel" when thermaling and has to be flown rather mechanically (but climbs
well), trim system on joystick (I just squeeze the lever and move the indicator
with my left hand; works much better), some history of landing gear problems,
canopy is hard to seal because of its size, blowholes are a pain in the ass to
clean, must dump all tail ballast before dumping any wing ballast (no option to
dump part of tail ballast for CG while dumping part of wing ballast), some
cosmetic discoloration of gelcoat due to overcatalyzing.
marc silverman
I have been flying mine for a couple of years(DG-300)and find it a excellent
all around ship. If you can get one with a tinted canopy that would be a
plus.Wing are on the heavy side for a standard class plane ,that would be the
only negative point other than having a clear canopy as I do.Very easy to fly.
Good luck. Marc Silverman WV
Howard Mills
MikeYankee wrote:
>
> I have a DG-300 and love it. I would buy another one in a minute, or a 303,
> but that's because it takes a couple of years to get a Discus 2.
>
I have a DG-300 Club Elan (that means it doesnt have the blown wing)
but with retract undercart.
I bought the plane new in 1989 - regret that due to work/family/weather
I havnt flown it a much as I'd like. Got my first 300 km in it
and best was just over 400km (reasonable going up here in N. Germany).
I applied the "Noppenband" to wings at same position as where the holes
would
have been.
My DG has water tanks but I have never used them - our conditions are
usually too weak.
I find the DG-300 has super visibility and is docile. Recently I have
added
2.5kg lead to tail to reduce the nose-heaviness. Prevously I had
thermalled it with stick fully back & now thats much improved.
I'm rather tall (6'4" = 1.94m) which means seating position
is not ideal - legs do not lie flat around instrument panel. I have
some padded "rolls" which I shove under leg muscels which avoids
the pains after an hours flying!
Seating position in Discus was even worse - which was why I did
not buy a Discus at that time.
My lack of great flights is not due to the lack of performance offered
by the DG - the plane is good enough.....
---
Howard E. Mills DG-300 "HEM"
(Segelflugreferent, Luftsportverein Kreis Pinneberg)
World-Wide Web: http://www.segelflug.de/vereine/pinneberg
Nigel A. Cripps
Thiemo Gorath <tgo...@cal.ping.de> wrote in article
<6wlFS...@cal.ping.de>...
> Hi,
>
> can anybody write his or her experiences regarding that aircraft?
> (I'm thinking of getting one and would love to know how you feel about
the
> plane, how well or bad it flies,.....).
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Thiemo Gorath
>
I bought a new 303 last year and have about 60 hours in it so far. I chose
the DG rather than a Discus partly because the delivery was going to be
three months earlier (LS8 was much longer), but mostly because of the
superb visibility and excellent seating position, along with excellent
performance. With the winglets the glider climbs superbly virtually 'hands
off' and feels very balanced at all speeds. Very easy to fly, and the only
glider I have flown that remains comfortable after several hours.
I would buy it again.
Nigel Cripps
Marc Ramsey
>Thiemo Gorath <tgo...@cal.ping.de> wrote in article
><6wlFS...@cal.ping.de>...
>> Hi,
>>
>> can anybody write his or her experiences regarding that aircraft?
>> (I'm thinking of getting one and would love to know how you feel about
>the
>> plane, how well or bad it flies,.....).
>>
>> Thanks a lot,
>>
>> Thiemo Gorath
I just took delivery of a new 303 Acro which happened to be
available at the factory. I had flown a DG-101 for many years,
and had been very happy with it. I had a Ventus B for a year,
and was not so happy with it.
The new cockpit in the 303 is even more comfortable than the
earlier DGs. The headrest is no longer attached to the canopy.
It is now part of the backrest, which works a lot better for me.
There is an air bladder behind the backrest, so you can adjust
it in flight. The cushions under the legs are made of thicker
high density foam, and are a lot more comfortable.
I finally flew it yesterday. Assembly is pretty straightforward.
I've never owned a glider that had less than 500 hours, so I
wasn't used to how tightly everything fit. The winglets require
a 4mm hex driver to install/remove, a bit of a pain since there
is one more tool that might be missing when you need it. The
wing roots are relatively heavy, I've been spoiled by the
carbon fiber wings of the Ventus.
I flew at Minden, Nevada, which is about 4700 ft (1500m)
elevation. Conditions were light to moderate (for Minden)
with small turbulent 2 - 4 kt (1 - 2 m/s) blue thermals topping
out at 15000 ft (4500m) or so. I didn't carry any ballast. CG
was 25% forward of the rear limit, thanks to the brass tail
wheel option (I weigh 195 lbs).
On takeoff and tow it flies the same as all of the 300s and
101s I've flown. The aileron forces are a little heavy (though
light in comparison to my Ventus B). A touch pitch sensitive,
rudder is just about right. I did some stalls, it was hard to get
a good break straight ahead, but when it did I'd get a slight
wing drop, relaxing the back pressure brought about
immediate recovery. In a turn, the inner wing would drop,
opposite rudder and relaxed back pressure would effect
recovery with a loss of 100 to 150 ft (30 - 40 m). I had to
use severely crossed controls to get an over the top spin
entry.
In turbulent thermals, I noticed a wing rocking motion I've
seen in some other gliders I've flown with winglets. I
assume this is due to flow separation on the winglet, I'll
have to experiment with installing turbulators. It took me
a few tries to get the thermalling right, a 45 degree bank
was comfortable at 45 to 50 kts (85-90 km/h). It won't fly
hands off in a thermal like a Discus or LS-4, it needs a
light touch to maintain the desired bank.
Glide seemed very reasonable up to 80 kt (150 km/h),
much better than my 101, and about the same as my
Ventus. The thermals were pretty widely spaced, and
since they weren't marked by clouds, it was often
necessary to cover considerable distances before finding
something useful. At one point I covered 60 sm (100 km)
with a loss of 3000 ft (1000m) altitude, by just slowing up
in the bits of lift I passed through. I had to do a bit of ridge
soaring when I got low, the 303 is very manuverable and I
felt quite comfortable down near the rocks.
At the end of the day, I ended up at 6500 ft (2000m) on
what was becoming the shadow side of a 11000 ft
(3300m) ridge that had to be crossed to get home. By
flying in to small canyons that still had sun light, and circling
through whatever bumps I could find, it was possible to
work up and around the ridge to the sunny side until I hit a
4 kt (2m/s) thermal which took me high enough to get home.
The total distance covered was just over 180 sm (300km)
in 4.5 hours, not bad for a first flight in a new glider.
Overall, I'm very happy with it. The things I like:
* Very comfortable cockpit
* Climbs very nicely
* Very manuverable
* Very good glide ratio at slow to medium speeds
* Good finish overall
What I don't like:
* Heavy wings
* Aileron forces on the heavy side
* Doesn't groove in a thermal without some pilot input
* Seems to go down like a stone over 90 kts (170 km/h)
Marc
Al
Glad to see you in your new ship...
Al.