Flysurfer Speed 5

[windrider1]

I have flown many kites throughout the years and the speeds have really impressed me especially the lotus. I don't think I can see myself going back to an lei even on the water. The new foils are extremely versatile if you do both land and water. And they hold their own against most leis these days, theyre fast, depower well, easy to set up and launch and the lift and float is wonderfull. Only thing is thyre soo darn expensive.

Speed 4 didn't last long did it? compared to speed 3!..

I think FS are scrambling to keep up with the speed of other players in the market.

But yes. It looks good. Higher aspect looks good. It probably competes directly with Chrono V2 now.

Its exciting times to be a foil flyer. So much development is being pumped into them at the moment.

[plummet]

As far as exciting times for foils? Yes! But it took the blazing speed of the race kite to draw the ignorant propagandized masses kicking and screaming to the humble but efficient and often ridiculed "foil". Need I say more?

hehehe... yep.

Bloody sheep they are!.....

None the less now there is lots of high performning foils and that's good.

[Adventure Logs]

The Sonic and now the S5. I wonder why they aren't doing them in lotus cloth.

=J-

[foilholio]

I remember them talking about supply problems with lotus. Something about the coating taking a while to apply at the manufacturer. I hope they are not using Polyurethane again, that stuff is really shit. Maybe they will offer it as a premium upgrade. But looking at http://www.flysurfer.com/en/produkte/ki ... eup_05.jpg it still looks like a lotus coating?

WTF is Double Cordwise Ballooning?

As to foil development. It's a bit slow in recent years. Flysurfer seems less adventurous. I guess past problems have really hurt the company. I think they are just refining their knowledge, probably focusing a fair bit on improving manufacture. I am surprised they dont have their own factory yet? There must be a fine recipe to get the different prestretches just right for lines/bridles.

Jet flaps were from a poor understanding of aerodynamics and I am glad they are gone. Mini ribs seem to really do something good, but none in this kite. Rigid LE has it's wear problems and weight. It annoys me the Flysurfer mixer still carries an excess 50% on the B SPL. Seriously trim the fat out of it.

The peak seems to have undergone a lot of development. Maybe Reinhart should be permitted to make a double skin model

It's hard to tell as the video is so short, but the kite seems to have a bit more projected area change than previous speeds.

[kitexpert]

I remember them talking about supply problems with lotus. Something about the coating taking a while to apply at the manufacturer. I hope they are not using Polyurethane again, that stuff is really shit. Maybe they will offer it as a premium upgrade. But looking at http://www.flysurfer.com/en/produkte/ki ... eup_05.jpg it still looks like a lotus coating?

WTF is Double Cordwise Ballooning?

As to foil development. It's a bit slow in recent years. Flysurfer seems less adventurous. I guess past problems have really hurt the company. I think they are just refining their knowledge, probably focusing a fair bit on improving manufacture. I am surprised they dont have their own factory yet? There must be a fine recipe to get the different prestretches just right for lines/bridles.

Jet flaps were from a poor understanding of aerodynamics and I am glad they are gone. Mini ribs seem to really do something good, but none in this kite. Rigid LE has it's wear problems and weight. It annoys me the Flysurfer mixer still carries an excess 50% on the B SPL. Seriously trim the fat out of it.

The peak seems to have undergone a lot of development. Maybe Reinhart should be permitted to make a double skin model

It's hard to tell as the video is so short, but the kite seems to have a bit more projected area change than previous speeds.

What was the "poor understanding of aerodynamics" (about jet flaps) that FS designers suffered so long?

Why do you think mini ribs "do something good", but not "in this kite"? What do you mean?

Rigid LE are aerodynamically sound. Added weight is perhaps 100g, so not much. They add labour and costs. I don't know how much FS pays for it's workers, but salaries in China have got higher.

Fact that FS is not afraid to increase kite's weight is not surprise to me. If highest aerodynamical efficiency and more durability is needed, some added weight must be accepted. The most efficient kites ever, some russian super high AR and high cell count kites are not light weight kites at all, nor are high performance gliders.

For mixer, do you mean B-pulleyline is too long? If shorter, it should have it's own attachment point on A-main. It is possible of course, but complicates things a bit. Short B-pulleyline is reasonable, because its working range is short too.

Single skin development is not the same game at all, different challenges there. In real world there is no other way but to try slowly improve things. I have one more or less revolutionary concept, but probably I will not show it on Kiteforum.

For me canopy curve of Speed5 looks pretty same as it has been in Speed3-4.

"Double Cordwise Ballooning" (chordwise?) is a bit mystery to me. In SurfPlan there is parameter called skin tension.

[foilholio]

I believe the poor understanding might stem from some software they used, think I read that somewhere. Otherwise you just need to look at slotted flaps which they are based on. They are not meant to be continually enabled. They are used in situations where high lift / low speed ,but high drag is not an issue. So essentially they will induce drag( but increase lift) and prevent best L/D ratio. How could anyone ever think having big odd holes at odd places on a wing would not induce extra drag? Add in you lose wing surface, make construction more complicated, weight, etc. Not very good all up. Nearly 100% a gimmick.

I meant the mini ribs are not on the speed5. Sorry sometimes my english is not so straight forward.

100g is heaps. I would guess at extra 5mins per cell. China wages are last time I investigated roughly between $1 and $4 an hour. I believe places like Srilanka etc you can get sub $1 per hour labor. I have seen common 30-50cent per hour labor in the region. Even as low as 10cents . Wonder what sort of problems are brewing in the world?

GVX? Interesting kite.

Yes A main will need to be split. I.e. 2 extra slices. The extra labor will be cheaper than the material saved.

I was just comparing advances between single and double skins. Flysurfer seemed to make one huge leap with the psycho4. Massive project area changes, very short bridles etc. Development then got toned down for the speed3. Speed4/pyscho5 saw some radical new developments, 3 bridle galleries, but projected area change was less. Unity was very ho hum. Lotus just saw some tweaking really, but fabric was awesome. Speed 5 is more tweaking. Tweaking is great. But when you abandon things like pyscho4/5? especially considering you have all the technology from all your other kites to update and improve them with very little R and D. Flabbergasted.

My guess is "double cordwise balloning" is the same billowing/balloning top and bottom. I think the straps help retain the kites shape, but if you get the skins just right they dont need to do this?

[kitexpert]

" I think the straps help retain the kites shape, but if you get the skins just right they dont need to do this?" -foilholio

Every CAD-design program can produce geometrically correct shaped skins. Problem is when ram air pressure, altering cell height/width ratio chordwise, different loads and fabric stretch affect how cell balloons in practice. These are quite messy things to master in foilkite design. Parameters like skin tension and "D C Ballooning" (?) control are used to counter unwanted things, to make surfaces more aerodynamic.

Inner straps which take spanwise loads are good because they let lower skins balloon freely, smoothier.

What you wrote FS's development in foils I mostly agree. P4 really was an advanced design, but its bridle is not shortest possible by far. But it is okay. I think it tried to compete with LEI's, but get caught between them and Speeds. It is quite rare kite nowadays, it wasn't big seller ever.

I don't fully agree about jet flaps. They have drawbacks, of course. But it is valuable goal to try to get backstalling later, like it is on LEI's. Many kiters just want to sheet in and go. That kind of kiters often choke foilkite and then think foilkites suck.

Did you check my "Speed6"? It has much more cells than A15 or two or four more than current Speeds, but less total bridle lenght than in any of those. Still, every rib is fully supported. Of course there is limits how short bridle can be, it must not be too short.

Cell count 43 is very good compromice between bridle simplicity and good enough cell width/height ratio for a kite with AR over 6. If more cells, bridle becomes more complex. If less, cell shape gets worse. I am really pleased with that quick design, one of my best (at least on paper), I think

[foilholio]

They cant be geometrically exactly correct if other things that alter the shape aren't accounted for. I have seen flysurfer mention they improve the software many times with different kite releases. I wondered what exact software they use and who shares it. It could not be possible that they solely develop this stuff.

Guess that answers that if it wasn't a big seller. No wonder they have no interest in it anymore. I think it's one of the most advanced concepts ever tried though. The bridles are as unusual as they are, lots of long primaries, I believe because they need to adapt to the changing curve. As to their length I don't think flysurfer has made anything as short since?

Yes jet flaps have the potential to lower stall at high AOA, but it's what they do at all other AOA's that is the problem. Backstall on foils is a function of camber and mixer. If you setup a foil kite say with diablo line or malabar , suddenly it has the feel of a LEI. Like most LEI it wont reverse launch and has progressively higher bar pressure as you sheet in. Much the same with high camber. You can nearly double the lift from an airfoil with enough camber, but good luck trying to ride upwind. The kite will pull like a truck but will be impossible to point upwind. For some reason this high camber feel reminds me of many LEIs.

Yes I saw your poke at flysurfer with that thread. Almost had me convinced your Rob Whittall!
Less "total" bridle length? Those bridles look long. I think what you mean is total line used? If so that is not necessarily a good thing. I believe it's the length of the bridle from canopy to lines that's important, from a usability perspective. Long bridles whether numerous or less will still wrap around the kite. If you want to reduce cross section, then yes splitting them well, may be the best solution, but so is optimizing diameters used.

It's a nice kite, but I would guess making a foil look nice in CAD and having one fly nice are two very different things. Probably why most LEI designers struggle even with the idea, that and COPYING a foil doesn't have many options (flysurfer) and is probably a lot of work.

[foilholio]

For all the talk of reducing wrinkles, fs kites always look more wrinkly than ozones. I would guess unavoidable with triple depower

fs_speed5-closeup_01.jpg (35.7 KiB) Viewed 1903 times

Triple depower does look increased

speed5 triple depower.jpg (23.02 KiB) Viewed 1903 times

I guess FS is going to change the ARs for the other sizes, I would think 5.5to6 for the 6m and maybe 7 for the 21m. I think they will then release sonic2 with even higher AR. Will we ever see a mid 4to5AR again?

[Adventure Logs]

Couple things I noticed after watching the 2nd video:

Looks like the bridle lines aren't color coordinated anymore/more like the Chrono. This was a complaint of mine when I demoed the v1 Chrono. Having different colors on the left/right helps when you detangle.

I don't see the butthole??

12m should be green!

No changes with the bar. While the new bar is better than the infinity 2, I'm not a fan of the color, so freaking tired of the strap depower(why no cleat option for freeride), and can flysurfer actually make bungee cords that actually work? It's a bitch when you wrap up your lines and can't keep the bungee on it.

They say it has the largest windrange, but according to the specs, the sonic still has a larger range.

I'm curious about the turning speed. Honestly after going Sonic, it will be hard to go back to the Speeds upless they made them turn pretty damn quick.

Anyone hear any rumors when the Sonic 2 will come out? I'm assuming not for another year but I'm looking at buying a 11(I love my 18) and don't want to buy one just for the next gen to come out.

=J-