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My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2017 7:06 pm
by opie
Fully powered up/ trim out, bar against chicken loop, my leaders would all be equal, except there is an extra 8 inch/20 cm (red) piece added before the front lines. This was on the "ready to fly version" 15m. It seems to fly fine, as far as I know as a beginner foil kiter, but I am curious. Don't most kites use equal lines? Is this something they added to get the kite in the right tune? If so, I assume I will need to add something to my new 12m A15 to use with my new ozone race bar. How do I determine the length? I vaguely remember a post about adjusting trim by the amount of back stall but I can't find it now.

Thanks

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:35 am
by NorthernKitesAus
Hi mate. I have the PANSH Aurora 12m, so please take these comments with a grain of salt, but they may help you out, because I've had to tune the bridles to get the kite to work.
Firstly, lets' be clear and honest here: Pansh kites are NOT made from the same quality and bridle tuning you get from Ozone or Flysurfer kites. They are in effect, poor versions of those kites and will require you to adjust things. Like they say, you get what you've paid for.
Having said that, when I first got the kite it had that extra little bit of pigtail length on the front bridles, and I too wondered WTH? But as you said, I tried the kite straight out of the bag and it flew fine (yeah fine alright in sub 10 knots of wind), but when I took her in 18knots of real wind, the kite did play around a lot, especially when it hindenburghed out of the sky several times.
I used a Naish BTB (behind the bar) type bar, with equal 4-lines. I made sure the lines were all equal and the bar was tuned.
So when the kite flunked around, I realised it's not the bar and lines. It has to be the kite.
This is where you'll have to do trial and error.
Pick a moderate wind day, say max 15knots.
Fly the kite straight out of the bag, but get a friend to video tape it for you, with zooming especially on the bridles. I don't know if the A15 has the same bridle system, but if it has the two pulleys like the Aurora, then take special note of the way the pulleys move when you turn the kite.
Do they look even?
Do they move in unison when turning the kite?
Do they show slack bridles behind them when under load? So in other words, is the pulley pulling one top half of the kite more than the bottom?
Note the canopy. Are there any wrinkles? Folds? Anywhere along the canopy that looks like it's been pulled too hard or pinched by the bridles?
All these things will determine whether you need to adjust and WHAT to adjust.
The first thing I did after seeing my kite fly was extend the front lines on the bridles to remove slack from the back lines.
This stopped the hinderburg effect.
Next thing I noticed was the kite would collapse into a bow tie, so I noticed the bridles on one side were not the same as on the other.
One in particular was coming out of the C line and was more torque or tighter than the same line on the other side.
So I took them apart, measured them and sure enough one was 3cm shorter!
Replaced it with a longer line (spare parts department!), and voila the kite flies like a dream now.

So for the price of Pansh, they are "good" kites, don't get me wrong, but they do need special attention. And patience.
Eventually you'll get it to fly very nicely and even get better low end from it too.

Good luck

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:59 am
by foilholio
Most kites are trimmed to not have backstall with the bar fully in, this all revolves around the lines being even with them. I personally think backstall is very useful on kites especially foils. All kites go out of trim as to gain backstall rather quickly as the rear lines shrink. This is why they have trim adjustments :-). Or should I say the bar is adjustable in and out :-). The trim adjustment just really changes where the bar sits and what it's limits are. What you really want to do with any kite is just fly and use the trimmer first to find a comfortable range and position for your bar. If you run out of trim adjustment -> then you add knots or pigtails.

I "think from memory" most Pansh's don't use even lines, so you will need to modify other brand lengths a bit for them, either at the kite of bar.

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:28 pm
by opie
Looking back, one of my repeated mistakes is backstalling the kite in the middle of a dive, killing the power. I thought this was user error, but maybe I need a little less backstall. Also, the kite flies best, totally trimmed in with bar all the way out. This gives me the most power. While I was replacing the chicken loop I gave myself an extra couple inches of bar throw, and removed the 8 inch extension, so now the front lines are 6 inches shorter than they were, i.e. 2 inches longer than the back lines. I'll try this and bring a pigtail to extend it a bit if needed.
I think since it flies very stable the bridles are okay, I just need the trim adjusted.
Thanks guys, Chris

P.S. Turns out the Pansh line set is all even, but there is a 3/4 inch difference in the length of the steering line leaders on the bar.

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 5:00 am
by opie
Finally got to try the 15m without the 8 inch extra piece on the steering lines, Sensor on the buoy said 8 to 10 mph with downwind current about 1.5 mph. It flew much better, I ended up with the trim strap about half way and had more bar throw than needed in both directions.
The 12m also flew well on the ozone bar, with all lines equal. The wind was a good knot less and I couldn't get going, but a better kiter could have. I could feel my inefficient water starts eating up the power before I could get on foil. But the kite seemed happy with the trim strap around halfway also.

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:29 am
by socommk23
I think the extra pigtails for pansh kites are there to make the Pansh bar work with said kite.
I didn't like how my Aurora flew on the Pansh bar. Put it on a airush bar on equal line length and never looked back.

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:08 pm
by oldkiter
Just want to add to this discussion a finding I had yesterday with my Pansh bar - came with new Aurora II 10m. My first foil kite.

When kite/bar came and I tried a low-wind fly of them the kite appeared very poor.

However I had put together a bar with 18m equal length lines. Kite flew much better but have not had opportunity to try again in anything over about 10 knots.

Yesterday I changed the CL on the Pansh bar to one with upper swivel, and changed the CL line to the cleat to add about an extra 2 inches of throw/trim. When I ran out the bar/lines to fixed point I realized that the fronts were at least 14-16 inches too long. So I removed the 2 pigtails just below the front lines attachment point, Basically both the red and grey pigtails shown in Opie's picture.

Now the lines are about the same lengths - might need some minor trimming. Waiting to try the Pansh bar in higher winds for this size kite.

It seems that Pansh may be sending out the same bar for all kites. Maybe some other model requiring different length lines.

I know that many very knowledgeable foil kite user have made bridle changes. But it may be possible that the Pansh bar setup could explain much of the initial bad kite performance. I'll see.

Thanks.

Re: My Pansh A15 15m bar and lines ?

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:57 am
by Regis-de-giens
Setting the optimized line length is indeed step 1 BEFORE touching the briddles; From what I know people having changed the briddles had beforehand set the correct line length.

Historically, Pansh kite were set differently from standard kites : even line length when fully DEPOWERED ; as a consequence, when you want to use a standard bar (= set with even lines when fully powered), you need to add extensions on front lines (5 to 40 cm). It seems that Pansh changed to to standard setting for the A15 and Aurora 2 (*) (meaning integrate extensions directly on front line connection), which can explain that Pansh had complementary extensions on their existing bar to compensate and still be able to use it with A15 and Aurora2.

(*) not very clear since Pansh does not communicate on that, and some kite still need some extensions; but fabrication tolerances and absence of kite bridle pre-stretch before selling it may be the root cause (this extension need can disapear after a pair of hours of use)