Development and Concept - NOVA MENTOR LTF 1-2

NOVA has a long tradition in the class of high level 1-2 wings. The Nova CARBON was the first to set new standards in performance some years ago. Following it, the ARTAX was the new reference in this class. It was not easy for us to realize a step forward with the MAMBOO.
Now we wanted to go even further and improve upon the Nova MAMBOO, which successfully held the performance lead in its class until its now, according to the measurements from GLEITSCHIRM MAGAZINE. Reaching this target was very demanding!

It took us one and a half years from the first MENTOR proto (X189: April 24, 2006) to the certification and production start of the final version. Very complex computer simulations (CFD) promised a big step forward in performance for new concepts. But flight tests showed that it was not easy to implement those ideas:

Some prototypes impressively demonstrated their performance potential, but they were not good in other disciplines like handling or safety. We didn't just want to build a great performance wing, we also wanted to improve in the disciplines of handling, safety and even more in comfort and simplicity.

Early in Summer 2007 we thought that we had finally reached our goal. We had built wings in S, M and L sizes, which were very promising. But when we did some final performance comparisons against the Mamboo, we had to admit that we had not reached our own performance goals. We had to reject this concept and make further efforts to improve the MENTOR.

Amongst other things, we slightly reduced the aspect ratio and spent a lot of time on improving the wing surfaces. We tried many different wing tip designs and finally found a solution which was quite impressive in terms of performance and handling.

www.nova-wings.com

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Characteristics - NOVA MENTOR LTF 1-2
New wing and new homepage (NOVA Factor)
NOVA Factor Trailer
NOVA Mentor XXS 100
NOVA FACTOR (LTF 2) - Review
Nova RADIX - Video