My Litesport is a classic, I'd say. But a few gripes.

I'm 99% sure it came cross tuned, that is a setup fault (outer wands differentially rotated) was tuned by setting it up wrongly (one sprog raised about a cm compared to the other). I had to learn to tune the glider to get rid of it. Thank Dennis Pagen for his articles in HG mag for the explanation. The manual wasn't much use. Tuning this glider is possible, but not for the faint hearted. It takes hours of fiddling.

The sail quality "could be better". The Laminar Pause sail (on my Easy) was a superb finish by comparison. There is no doubt this won't last as long. Plus in July I discovered a rip on the trailing edge root cover, created by bad stitching which had made too many perforations. Still to be repaired - doesn't seem structural, but it's not good.

The ZOOM frame is a bit OTT. It's strong - very strong - but at the same time delicate. The front and rear wires look as if they touch and rub the uprights, and the black anodising/coating comes off too easily, and so looks immediately tacky. The corner mounts are fiddly, since the pip pins seem to pull out the tubing/sleeve that holds the side wires in - a bit scary, you need to include that in your pre-flight check.

The bag is too big - too long, by 10cm at least, and too baggy. Makes it difficult to carry.

Apart from that, it is great. Especially in flight - superb. Take off easy with VG full off, then after I'm in the 1st thermal I pull VG on 1m, then I have just a hint of high siding. One handed in 3 or 4 up isn't uncommon. Go on glide, in smooth air just pull it on as much as you want and let it fly at trim. In thermals with VG on just 1m or so, trim is slow, once you are used to it that works great, the glider climbs with the best. VG is long, but easy to operate and doesn't look like sticking. Bar pressure is low, roll low and responsive too. I can fly three hours and not feel too tired, and I'm a not especially fit 40 year old. Big improvement over the Laminar Easy, but I guess any advanced glider should be the same in that respect, more or less.

Landing, of course if you get panicky could be a bit of a problem, it's potentially fast and responsive. But get it lined up, VG off and pull in and you'll drop OK. Then rounding-out comes quite early in general, and you'll need to just let it carry on going up, and flare will be quite soon, quite light, almost on auto I find. I've had four flights (out of 24) when the bar touched the ground, although two of those were bad ones (crashes, effectively) caused by unexpected conditions (exceptional ground effect, sudden cross wind). 20 landings in low or nil wind with the glider resting on my shoulders. Yes, I've got around 170 flights like that now, but even so. This is a great glider to land.

Conclusion: great value for money, a great club glider for someone who wants to save 2 or 3 kgs and 1500 EUR... I'm not sure I'd trade it today for either a Litespeed or any other flex wing. Suits me fine.

9:46:46 PM