Thanks Tingger, my information was not complete and Pobjoy, of course you are right. And in the old days of flying -21s and -31s Silvers were not necessary. I was flying a -31 earlier this week, and you wouldn't want to encourage people to go too far from the field in one! But - when the ATC went from T-31s to G103s (and knowing its propensity to Gold Plate' stuff), having acquired sailplanes that had reasonable performance I'm surprised the 'powers-that-be' didn't tighten up the licensing requirements at the same time. I'm not saying they needed to, more surprised that they didn't.