On Jan 13, 4:33*am, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Jan 13, 6:40*am, T8 wrote:

Back to trailers: *From fuel consumption numbers, I can back out that
my Komet trailer/glider has an effective fuel consumption of 120 miles
to the gallon at 60 - 65 mph on level road, no wind.

That's pretty impressive.

When I was towing a Grob two seater in (admittedly a pretty crappy
trailer) it reduced the range of my 2.5l Subaru on a 56l fill up from
about 620 km to about 350 km. *Say, from 32 mpg to about 18 mpg.

http://hoult.org/bruce/Subaru_with_TA.jpg

To put it into the normal units used here, the car alone normally uses
about 9 l/100 km on a long trip, and the combo used about 16 l/100km.
That implies that the trailer used about 7 l/100 km, or 40 mpg.

I'm sure a Komet with a single seat glider would be much better, but
I'm surprised it's three times better.

The Komet wins on aerodynamics. My old Schreder trailer, despite
being lighter, had twice the incremental fuel consumption at 65 mph,
so 60 mpg. It is similar in shape to your Grob trailer. Relative to
the Komet, it was like towing a parachute! I tow 'em all European
style behind small hatchbacks. Martin's correct, towed behind a large
RV or similar, there would be less difference.

-Evan Ludeman / T8