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Ram airs crash in 2012

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L0KI
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Re: Ram airs crash in 2012

Postby L0KI » Sun Dec 09, 2012 11:09 pm

Within six or eight months of the first time i touched a kite, I'd flown not sheetable foils of a half dozen different brands and models, on handles and bars.. Mosquito, Advance, Flexifoil, Windwing, JoJo, Slingshot.
Peter Lynn C-Quads, then Arcs, Guerrilla and Bomba.
Ozone Frenzy's (on the water for a while).
Flysurfer later.
They are all a little different, but they are all similar enough that basic kite skills allow you to get the job done without a whole lot of fuss.
Some of the slow shitball kites take some practice in the surf to not f*** up.
But none of it is rocket science. .....in my opinion.

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Re: Ram airs crash in 2012

Postby Flight Time » Sun Dec 09, 2012 11:37 pm

Oldnbroken wrote:Within six or eight months of the first time i touched a kite, I'd flown not sheetable foils of a half dozen different brands and models, on handles and bars.. Mosquito, Advance, Flexifoil, Windwing, JoJo, Slingshot.
Peter Lynn C-Quads, then Arcs, Guerrilla and Bomba.
Ozone Frenzy's (on the water for a while).
Flysurfer later.
They are all a little different, but they are all similar enough that basic kite skills allow you to get the job done without a whole lot of fuss.
Some of the slow shitball kites take some practice in the surf to not f*** up.
But none of it is rocket science. .....in my opinion.
^^^ This! ^^^

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Kamikuza
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Re: Ram airs crash in 2012

Postby Kamikuza » Mon Dec 10, 2012 2:49 am

Flight Time wrote:
Kamikuza wrote:Didn't say anything about "training for years"; but I don't agree with "a day" to become acquainted with the quirks and adapt to things like, not having a rigid-framed kite in the sky - especially when the conditions aren't perfect.

For example, how the kite behaves with loss of line tension usually requires more input that just sitting in the water waiting for the kite to float downwind and pick up the slack... you can just let the kite do what it wants but that can get messy. Then recovering that can require a knack too - more than just pulling a rear line and waiting.
I believe I said, "aside from launching and landing"... A foil kite will behave better than most LEI kites to a sudden loss of line tension. As has been discussed before, LEIs are front heavy, making them prone to hindenburg as opposed to drift. A foil kite is for the most part neutral. Aside from getting a little bit mushy as they are not being ram fed air, a foil kite will drift downwind straight in whatever position it was heading at the loss of tension, and won't continue to seek the nose down position. Launching them from water is a process of flying them in the direction that is facing up. If the kite noses in, fly it backwards and up by pulling the rear lines. If it hits trailing edge down, pull the front lines. If it goes flat and gets hit by a wave, hit the QR and write the kite off, swim to shore, and maybe eventually it will wash up full of seaweed.

Again, convince me why a foil kite needs special skills that are not obvious to anyone who actually understands basic, elementary aerodynamics.

And please, foil riders, stop this snobbery. Got I swear, its like talking to a middle aged high end Mercedes owner about what you do in the quarter mile on your supercharged Mustang. They look down their nose at you because they think you are little more than a trained ape on a tricycle, even if you can blow them away at a stoplight.

You caahnt simply pick up a finely tuned exahhmple of aerodynamic ahhtistry such aahs a foil kite, ahhd expect to simply fly it! Preposterous! Come now, lets get you some tea and crumpets..."

It's a kite, not a F-16, and a foil = an LEI. Neither one is superior. There are minor differences in how you fly them. Give me a day on a foil and I'll pick up what I need to know.
I don't believe I said anything about the obvious slight differences between launching or landing, so lets not keep banging away on those points.

If you're lucky enough to live where the wind is always strong, you WILL be able to just ride at the kite and have it float down wind with you... here, we get 10-15 knots more often than not and riding at the kite will unload the lines and send it flopping and folding in the sky. If you don't react to that more quickly than with an LEI and do the right thing, it can get messy.

It's not about aerodynamics, it's about reacting to how the kite behaves differently (not better) in situations like I described above.

There's no snobbery here on my part - they're just different, that's all. I'm sure after you spent a whole day on a foil (instead of a few minutes on the beach) you might actually see the differences and be able to comment on them a little more accurately. I'm pretty sure that you or any competent kiter could launch and ride a foil just fine... but to adapt to the quirks, I believe will take longer than a day, simply because you need time to experience them all.

Like any piece of gear, there ARE going to be areas of superiority in performance, by design. What you choose will be determined by your needs and what compromises you are willing to make.


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