And I'm really amazed how the flysurfer design team evolves. I would be slightly worried if my name was rob whitall to keep up. A lot of new or never practically used ideas which seem to work out really well. Also the 13m VMG with AR of 13 they released as a proto last year.... Hats of to even make ...

I don't understand how much discussion there is about the battens. I'm quite sure the Benni and the flysurfer guys are quite happy with the glassfiber battens and there isn't much to be improved for now especially on the material side, its way more important how to use them. They are economical and ...

The new R1 V4 apparently has some composite LE battens, carbon or glass fiber I would guess, maybe this special super expensive metal they use in some paragliding wings. Anyway they have an instruction video on their website using the paragliding technique and advise you to do so to not break the ba...

I think no diy kite builder is trying to safe money I could have bought a lot of kite quivers for just a few diy kites, its just a very fascinating part where lots of aerodynamics, practical "engineering" and craftsmanship meets. You need to know/learn a lot in many different areas, always question ...

I would go to 30 cells maximum if its your first kite. It would only add weight and construction errors. It wont be a clean canopy with a lot of cells which prevents your first kite from performing good. The most important thing to do right is sewing and being conservative when you never did a foilk...

Hello back and thanks for the comments. As to how I did the billow/strap tension: I designed the kite in Surfplan and Foilmaker, as both have quite similar settings for the basic kite shape. As I had a sailmaker friend with a Lasercutter, I did the final export as a .dxf export in foilmaker, because...

My latest 12m design
AR 5.2
36 Cells
Skytex 40
Glass fiber epoxy 0.8mm leading edge battens
One 3d shaping seam in Upper LE
3-5% billow
5 vents
Internal straps
Bridle every 2 ribs
No diagonals

Bridling and then see how it goes

I also started with some self made foil kites just because I find the topic very interesting, and love sewing anyway as a sailmaker. But, it takes quite a lot of motivation, time!!!! and material before you get a good one. It is not a cheap hobby. I think you can be lucky to have a good one but here...

Uni directional carbon fiber tubes, leave alone extruded are the most fragile when you drill holes.
Pullwinded at an angle of around 30 degrees seem to be one of the better choices.

When using Epoxy as a glue add a bit of microfiber/cotton, gives it a bit more strength. When shaping holes (depower) add a bit of microbaloons which makes it more easy and smooth when sanding/drilling. Microbaloons weaken the structual properties of Epoxy a bit though so not recommended for bonding...