Two were built; the second of which was later fitted with a high aspect ratio (30:1) wing, becoming the Akaflieg Braunschweig SB-9 Stratus.
[2] The wing is shoulder mounted at 1.5° dihedral,[3] with Schempp-Hirth airbrakes at mid-chord midway along the center section and ailerons on the outer panels.
The low wing loading also limited its smooth air cross country speed as there was no provision for ballast.
[1] The SB-8 V2 had shown that glass-fibre wings could be made stiff enough to avoid aeroelastic flutter problems and that the higher aspect ratio produced the expected improvement in glide angle.
At the time of its first flight in January 1969 the SB-9 had probably the greatest span of any glider then flying, though the 22 m (72 ft 2 in)-span Holighaus Nimbus 1 flew only three days later.
[5] Both SB-8s competed at the German National Championships of 1968, Wolfgang Beduhn finishing fifth in the V1 and Helmut Treiber seventh in the V2.
During these largely vertical excursions, the wing also twisted and its overall motion excited vibrations in the rear fuselage and tail unit.
[1] The career of the SB-9 ended in 1972, when it was decided to use its wing on the SB-10 two-seater, a new design with a very different fuselage and the span increased still further with an 8.7 m (28t ft 7 in) centre section.