The Kora was a two-seat side by side motorglider, intended as a trainer. Its long span, high aspect ratio wing gave it a respectable gliding performance. The overall layout was unusual, with a central pod fuselage in front of a pusher configuration engine and with its empennage on twin tail booms. It had a powered aircraft style tricycle undercarriage.[1]
The Kora was an all-wood aircraft and its constructors, Kortenbach & Rauh, were best known as furniture makers. It had a cantileverhigh wing with a constant chord centre section and tapered outer panels. Schempp-Hirth airbrakes opened over the upper, inner wing surfaces from mid-chord. The central pod was broad, housing a cockpit 1,200 mm (47 in) wide under a starboard-side opening, two piece canopy which reached from the wing leading edge almost to the nose. Instructor and pupil sat side-by-side, with the 48 kW (64 hp) Limbach SL 1700EC1 air cooled flat four piston engine behind them, where the wing became broader to allow propeller clearance.[1][2]
Two slender, tapering booms ran rearwards from the wing, each ending at a straight edged fin which tapered both above and below it. A tapered, straight edged tailplane was carried on top of the fins, projecting outwards. The rudders and one piece elevator were rectangular.[1]
Two prototypes were built, the first flying ion 13 September 1973. This had a fully retracting tricycle undercarriage with mainwheels retracting rearwards into the tail booms and the nosewheel rearwards into the fuselage pod. The second prototype, which flew in 1976, retained the retractable nosewheel but had fixed, spatted mainwheels on thin, cantilever, spring steel legs mounted on the lower fuselage to save weight and reduce complexity.[1] The extra drag reduced the glide angle from 31.4 to 30 and increased the minimum sink rate from 0.76 m/s (150 ft/min) to 0.85 m/s (167 ft/min).[2][3]
The second prototype was still undergoing flight tests early in 1978, when no decision on production had been reached despite orders for some twelve aircraft.[1] It remained on the German civil aircraft register in 2010.[4]
Specifications (fixed undercarriage)
Data from Jane's World Sailplanes and Motor Gliders, p.69[2]
