Style

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The Style is an ideal wing for school graduates, weekend pilots, or for your using on your first cross-country flight. It’s an optimum combination of high flight performance and high 'uncompromising' safety. Owing to its elliptical elongated wing, with slightly rectified rear edge, the Style's appearance is that of a state-of-the-art top-quality paraglider. Due to the conventional design of its predecessor (Accent), the Style has unrivalled launch performance, high stability, coordinated turns and superb recoverability. Compatible with power paraglider motors.
Glide Ratio 8.1

XC Magaizine review

  Ever heard of the Antonov Construction Bureau? They are the Eastern Bloc’s answer to Boeing. A long time ago several members of Antonov’s ’Ultralight Aircraft Department’ decided to set up Aeros and manufacture their first sport hang glider, the Stalker 14.

In the same year, Aeros also moved into paraglider manufacturing with a slightly redesigned version of the Airwave Black Magic. Having learnt the trade of actually manufacturing paragliders whilst making Apco’s Astra, Supra and Spectra gliders under licence, Aeros decided to take the next obvious step and begin designing their own wings from scratch.

Aeros’ R&D team nowadays consists of several design graduates who cut their teeth designing Antonov 70 and 140’s (twin and four engine turboprop airliners to you and me). Having then gained experience in paraglider design and tuning as part of the Apco Presta R&D team, Aeros’chief designer Petr Vaskovich felt they were ready to start manufacturing their own designs. They have since produced the Rival, Mister X, Accent, Virtuoso, Style and Select.
 
 

 Online editor: Ian Blackmore
 
 

THE BRIEF
Aeros tell us their philosophy is to combine maximum flight characteristics with maximum safety and produce wings that give maximum pleasure in flight. Their target is to attain easy take-off, progressive handling and huge reserves of safety before the onset of stall and spin.

The wings must be informative but not nervous and without overly heavy controls. The Style is a development of the Accent and, according to Aeros, aimed at pilots with ten hours airtime or more.

Acting on feedback from their customers (who were happy with the glide and stability but wanted more trim speed, especially for paramotoring), Aeros made changes to the lines and wingtips to bring the speed up to 36km/h on trim and 47 - 49km/h at full bar.

CONSTRUCTION
First impressions were good. The Style came in a well-made and thought-out rucksack, complete with inner bag, compression strap, manual and speed bar. The rucksack proved very comfortable to carry and had some excellent compression straps with simple and substantial quick release buckles on the sides.

The manual was comprehensive, in English, although not sporting the best of translations. The wing itself uses Gelvenor for the top surface and Porcher Marine for the bottom surface and ribs.

Quality of stitching was about average, with risers very similar to those used on some Apcos: thin black 25mm webbing, split A’s and a speed system with a 3:1 reduction. The brake toggles are comfortable and use magnetic poppers to attach to the D-riser. The Style’s only unusual feature is two sets of mesh intakes on each side of the wing.

LAUNCHING
Poor weather locally meant a trip to Wales for the first flights on the Style. SW winds saw us on Merthyr Common on day one. The first thing I noticed about flying the Style was that the brake lines were about 20cm too long. Slope landing on a steep, charred hillside amidst piles of burnt-out cars and shards of rusty metal is no fun if you can’t flare!

After a bit of fiddling, I found a decent length that allowed roughly 20 to 25cm slack with the brakes fully up. Inflating in light-ish winds, the wing readily fills with air and both forward and reverse launches proved relatively easy, barring a slight tendency for the wing to drop back unless brought completely overhead during the initial launch.

I also found it necessary to move under the centre if the glider wandered off line, as trying to correct by using just the brakes often caused the tip to stall and the wing to drop back.

PERFORMANCE AND HANDLING
The Style is very easy to fly and most pilots will immediately feel at home on it. Aeros have managed to endow the Style with a very soft, comfortable feel when you fly in thermals. There is feedback both in pitch and roll, but even with hands off it never feels like it’s going to get out of hand.

In level flight it feels like the wing is trimmed fairly fast with the brakes off, but the sink rate is not so hot at this speed. Slow the wing down to about quarter brake and you arrive at a similar sink rate to everyone else, though at a slower speed than the best in the class.

Having concluded that a decent sink rate requires a certain amount of brake, it comes as no surprise that thermalling requires the same. Weight-shift, push down firmly on the inside brake but keep a couple of inches pulled on the outside too. The Style then turns fairly flat, but still nice and tight.

Spin and stall always felt a long way away from any brake required for thermalling or normal flight. The climb rate is good, provided you don’t try to climb either steeply banked up or with very little brake on. Brake pressure is on the moderate side, which can get a little tiring in long, weak climbs where you need to keep a fair bit of brake on. Stronger climbs using less brake are a lot more fun.

There are vast variances in pitch damping within the DHV 1-2 class, and this can make a big difference in the hands of inexperienced pilots. Wrongly-timed inputs on the more agile gliders can produce some quite dramatic responses in rough air. Despite their ratings, these gliders may really only be suitable for more experienced pilots, especially if you fly a lot in areas with strong thermals.

The Style falls firmly into the gentle and safe category. Floating around on the Style you quickly appreciate its general feeling of safety and solidity. It’s one of the few gliders I’ve felt comfortable with when thermalling around hands-off or one-handed.

In rough thermals, although you do need to fly actively as it will pitch around a bit, it always feels very secure. Once at cloudbase and gliding along it showed a glide somewhere in the middle of the DHV 1-2 category.

One of my flights took me around the Black Mountains in Wales and into the Crickhowell, Abergavenny valley. It was a gorgeous evening, and the Style truly came into its own as a safe, secure platform for taking photographs.

Photographing hang gliders in thermals generally requires a fair bit of rather erratic, one- and no-handed flying. This day was no exception. It quickly became apparent that, left to its own devices, the Style could hold itself together pretty well in turbulence without getting overly pitchy or scary. Try that on some of the more agile DHV 1-2’s and you’re asking for some fair sized deflations!

The downside is an average glide and low agility. Horses for courses, I suppose. Trim speed is around 38km/h and accelerated about 48km/h. Best glide seemed to be with a fair bit of speed bar, which the manual confirms.

SAFETY
The Style is pitch and roll stable, and it behaved very well in both accelerated and unaccelerated asymmetric deflations. The Style pitches around just enough to keep you informed of turbulence. But even hands-off, it shows itself extremely capable of staying within acceptable limits, and remains pretty resistant to collapsing.

Big ears were easy to pull in via the split A’s, and came out on their own but with a slight spanwise flex of the wing on re-opening. Spirals were relatively easy to enter, although it took a fair amount of brake to enter quickly from level flight. From a mild wingover they were easy. Exit was trauma-free and it was easy to control the rate of descent during the spiral.

SUMMARY
Apart from not having quite the best launch characteristics, the Style is an extremely easy glider to fly. Its best characteristics are ease of use plus comfort and stability in turbulence. Glide at trim speed is not on a par with the best in its class, although once you accelerate slightly, it does seem to improve.

If you do a lot of ridge soaring you will find that keeping a decent sink rate requires a bit more brake than usual, although the plus side is having a little extra speed over some (but not all) competitors once the brakes are released. Once you are up high and climbing it’s a very pleasant wing, if slightly lacking in agility. Performance is somewhere in the middle of the class, but certainly when climbing, the differences are marginal and pilot skill will often more than make up for that.

Once again it all boils down to character and what you are looking for in your wing. Within the DHV 1-2 class I’d say the Style is about the most comfortable glider I’ve flown in turbulence with good levels of passive safety. There are very few DHV 1-2’s that cope this well with either no or incorrect inputs when in turbulence. It is comfortable, climbs well in thermals, but didn’t have quite the best glide or sink rate.

TECHNICAL DETAILS
STYLE                              26          28          30           32
Weight Range (kg)       65-85   80-100    90-110   105-125
Area Flat (m2)              26.00     28.00      30.00       32.00
Area Projected (m2)      22.75     24.50      26.23       28.00
Span Projected (m)         9.43       9.79      10.13       10.46
Aspect Ratio Flat             5.15       5.15       5.15         5.15
Aspect Ratio Projected     3.91       3.91        3.91        3.91
Cells                                41          41          41            41
AFNOR    Certification Planned Standard  Standard  Standard