Aeros will start the third season 2011 with the Combat line with tails. The reputation of the Combats with tail after two seasons is very good and impressive. Many pilots reported very comfortable flying with the tail during long cross country flights. Competition pilots reported the same and confirmed the performance of the Combats with tail in competitions.

Our tail is not a new idea, we have adjusted the tail to the needs of our Combats. With the right choice of profile, we have a tail that creates a minimum of drag, but a very good damping produced. The reason why we do not make the tail flexible in one direction is that we like to have the damping in both vertical directions. Especially in very strong mountain conditions (thermals up to 10m/sec) this is very helpful (the glider doesn't like to take the nose very fast and strong up during entering a thermal).

The tail allowed us to construct hang gliders with more aspect ratio without losing stability and ride comfort.  Our Combat GT has a very high pitch up with a low speed bar pressure.

With these results it was logical to develop a new Combat GT 09 with more aspect ratio, the Combat 13.5 GT:

The wing area of the new glider is 13.5 sq. m. With the span of 10.7 (same as our big sized gliders) it has the aspect ratio 8.5.

All of us certainly know that with increasing the aspect ratio we will increase low speed and middle speed glide ratio. It has been proven with our Combat 13.2 glider, but 13.5 has exceeded all our expectations by its glide characteristics. In addition, the 13.5 with the tail and the movable CG system installed has superior glide when gliding fast. This advantage is especially evident in turbulent air. The movable CG system allows us to increase max. speed of the glider as well, reducing the influence of the pilot’s movements and making high speed glides more comfortable. 

Certainly, greater aspect ratio is not a sufficient component for getting greater glide ratio. There had been gliders in the hang gliding history with aspect ratios much higher than 8.5, but they haven’t succeeded much.

Having superior glide characteristics without good handling and stability simply makes no sense, first of all one need to climb to be able to transfer altitude gain into distance.

The 13.5 has been successfully tested in Germany on the DHV vehicle with the sprog settings surprisingly low, lower than our other gliders and with the pitch up moment much higher than any other of our gliders with tails before. The glider was tested with a tail and there will be no option without a tail available.

The 13.5 will not replace any of the gliders available now – the 13.2 and 13.7 will stay in production. The 13.5 will only complement the existing Combat 09 production line, giving the pilots opportunity to choose the glider depending on their preferences and weight.