New to Foils, bought a Pansh A15 12m

[PugetSoundKiter]

Thanks for the update F-Bear, Your posts save me experimentation and wondering time.

To summarize, please clarify if these are your findings so far?

- Kite No Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 20m Lines. OK setup, but slow turning, needs too much bar throw and/or very long trimming.

- Kite No Modification, Pulley 2:1 Bar, 15m Lines. Great setup, drawback is bar clutter.

- Kite Jackov Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 12m Lines. Not a good setup, lines may be too short for the kite to fully open.

- Kite Jackov Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 18m Lines. Great setup, rapid depower, drawback may be limited reverse launch.

Wondering what your opinion is on Pulley Bar -vs -Jackov mixer (assuming with same length lines)?

[F-Bear]

yes, that summary is dead on ! If you have an A15, try the Jackomixer. very easy to do, and fully reversible if you don't like it. But you will !

Not sure about pulley vs jackomixer, but IMHO the jackomixer works better. as far as the bar and complexity, no contest. My pulley bar was a mess. And I think the kite flies better on jackomixer too. I only have a handful of hours on this kite, so not really qualified to have an opinion ! some folk like to tweak the heck out of it for maximum this or that, but I just want it to fly without drama, provide enough power to get going, and then be able to power-down and cruise. I think it will now do that. On the landboard, I do not think it will drift like my Peak does when I go heelside to toeside downwind turns, but we'll see if I can keep it flying ! On the Peak, that is a no-brainer....so easy I literally laughed out loud.

BTW, I did reverse launch A15 several times. It is very sensitive to sheeting when doing this, maybe all foils are I don't know. I grab the steering lines about 1-2 feet from the bar and pull them back and then twizzle how far I pull them back until kite rises off ground and then flip it over. A gust came through during one relaunch, but I have enough depower now it is not a huge deal for the kite to rocket straight up in the power zone. It did ( I pushed the bar all the way out to see what it would do), and probably would have zoomed over my head and stalled due to inertia but I slammed on the brakes near zenith by pulling bar in all the way (which gives backstall, as my steering lines are a couple inches shorter than main lines) and the kite was fine.

The ability of this kite to get over my head past 90 degrees is crazy...I have yet to fully understand how it even does that. And my neck hurts from looking up so much !

BTW Mr. PugetSoundKiter, I kited up there a few summers ago, man oh man it was great. Jetty Island and also some place way north...can't recall name but a bay by a farmer's field, you had to walk a km from parking to launch but Epic place. And the winds are so smooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth !

FB

[nothing2seehere]

No doubt there is heavy backstall when B-C is pulled 2x of normal. However Z is pulled less than 2x as much as normally, this decreases achievable max L and increases back stall tendency even more. Excessive pull of B-C makes kite fly and behave slower compared to linear or camber increasing AoA increase.

Positive thing is this high pull for B-C helps to fight front stalling, however at this stage some depowerability is already lost. This is (mainly) because of wing instability, it is not a mixer or bridle issue.

Heavy backstall on bar is dangerous for boosting: when kite stalls in the middle of the jump you will drop like a rock. Then good luck with pushing bar out and hoping Jacko-Pansh gets alive again

Without foilholio here to translate (the small bits of information housed between the distracting insults helped me to understand the theory) I'm going to need to ask my own questions on this. The normal way to test for backstall is to pull on max sheeting on the bar and see how long it takes to stall. On my LEIs this might be 10 seconds. For a given set of wind/water conditions I might then trim appropriately. I'm assuming that the same still applies to foil kites? Or does the relative lack of structure make a difference?

[nothing2seehere]

Thanks for the update F-Bear, Your posts save me experimentation and wondering time.

To summarize, please clarify if these are your findings so far?

- Kite No Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 20m Lines. OK setup, but slow turning, needs too much bar throw and/or very long trimming.

- Kite No Modification, Pulley 2:1 Bar, 15m Lines. Great setup, drawback is bar clutter.

- Kite Jackov Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 12m Lines. Not a good setup, lines may be too short for the kite to fully open.

- Kite Jackov Modification, Normal 1:1 Bar, 18m Lines. Great setup, rapid depower, drawback may be limited reverse launch.

Wondering what your opinion is on Pulley Bar -vs -Jackov mixer (assuming with same length lines)?

s2000kiter has talked about the jackomixer in terms of practical experience on here the most. He has also made the change onto an A15 12m (see his thread 'I sold my 12m soul for.....'). Most of his early testing was with the Genesis but its probable that the results still hold through to the A15 (which he has also flown with the mod). He tried the pulley bar first and didn't find the results to be worthwhile. From memory they made things acceptable but not nice enough that you would willing let someone else have a try on it. The jackomixer takes about 15-20 minutes first time around (watch video, pause, replicate, play video etc).

Its worth looking through the threads he contributed to as he also recommends adding some extension pigtails to the wing tips on the A15 12m to reduce tip stall.

[F-Bear]

Yeah....I don't get Foilholio. he sure knows his stuff, but could use a lesson or two in text-based communications. His posts have been EXTREMELY helpful to me learning about foil kites. but it is annoying when kiteexpert and him go into excessive discussion in a thread...over and over again !

I need to go read the "I sold my soul" thread, that sounds very interesting since I would like to stop the tip stall behavior.

FB

[PugetSoundKiter]

yes, that summary is dead on ! If you have an A15, try the Jackomixer. very easy to do, and fully reversible if you don't like it. But you will !

...

BTW Mr. PugetSoundKiter, I kited up there a few summers ago, man oh man it was great. Jetty Island and also some place way north...can't recall name but a bay by a farmer's field, you had to walk a km from parking to launch but Epic place. And the winds are so smooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth !

Thanks F-Bear. I do plan to try the Jackov 3:2:1 mixer and will report back.

Glad you got to enjoy Jetty Island, we do get nice thermals in the spring & summer evenings

[Michaelr123]

going to shamelessly high jack the thread for a second, for someone trying to conquer lightwind foiling (~7-10kts) I've been bouncing between my 14m apollo and an 11m boxer. At this point I've had mixed results between the two with no clear winner at this point. This has pointed me towards foil kites, but I don't want to shell out for a flysurfer (yet).

I've been following all the jackov mixer threads and I like the price of a ready to fly light weight cloth A15 12m. Is this something worth looking into if this is what i'm trying to accomplish? I'm dealing with fairly intermittent winds on a lake so surviving 4kts while floating is important.

I appreciate any and all feedback

[F-Bear]

I fly on lakes also.....and yes keeping the kite flying in a lull is important. For ultimate fly-ability in light wind, my guess is a Peak4 8m would be better than a A15 12m in Ultra-light cloth. The Peak is also FAR superior in handling gusty shifty winds; it does NOT fly like the A15 (or other foils I'd guess). If you are new to foils, that is OK with the Peak4 as it is super friendly and no effort to fly. With my A15 12m, I really gotta focus to keep it flying in lighter winds, but then again my foil kite experience is limited. An A15 in light cloth is not much less $ than cost of an 8m Peak4. I'd guess it would give a higher speed if that is important. What I've noticed on our lakes is the Peak4 works well, since the wind is not steady. It handles the lulls just fine (keeps flying, even when I'm just floating) and when the gusts come through provides power to get up and ride. This is a bit different than coastal folk who have light wind that is light, no gusts....so the Peak4 smaller power spike may not work for them in light winds.

Pros and cons for sure. I will be making this same decision eventually. Based on my A15 12m, am thinking a 9m A15 would do the trick for foiling. The A15 seems really powerful. A Genesis is also a good option (with Jackomixer) but they don't offer it in light cloth...if they did that would be my choice for sure. It matches what I want in a kite for foiling better than an A15. And it is dirt cheap, even compared to an A15. I would not get the Pansh bar, since you'd have to update it anyway. Any normal 4-line bar will work with A15 or Genesis.



FB

[derek440]

Michaelr I am currently also looking at the A15 as a possible light wind kite for 6-10kn, but I am 100kg. I currently have R1s for racing (10/13/17) but they are quite hard to manage under 8kn due to the short lines (12-17m) you have to use with them and they are tricky to water start in very light winds. From 8kn up I am ok but in winter it is often 5-8kn (I have had two 5kn sessions in the last week and done some swimming . I have tried an Aurora2 12m and Genesis 8m and Peak4 8m. I find the Aurora2 good (after I shortened B level mixer a little to make it stable) running on long lines (24m) but it does not generate much lift so it is hard to tack but good to gybe. When you sheet in for lift it doesn't provide any/much. The Genesis is not very powerful but is good for super gusty bad winds, but I rode the 8m last week in wind gusting from 8kn to 25kn and it was good for that - with the Jakomixer mod which makes the kite usable, without the mod it is a pig! I tried the peak4 8m in 10kn (raw video on my youtube - derek440) and I was able to ride (with 633 foil) but was underpowered for the session which was quite boring on flat water and hard work going upwind on toeside. I have just purchased a second-hand A15 - 15m in standard cloth which should arrive in a week, my intention is to try out the A15 and Jakomixer mod and see how light I can use this kite with 25m lines and to see whether it has enough lift and power for light wind tacking. If this kite is good I might buy an 18m UL cloth to use as my winter light wind kite (coming into winter here in Australia) and hopefully it can work in 5-6 knots with my race foil (Daytona). I'll report back when I get the kite. I had a good chat to the person who sold it to me and he bought the A15 but didn't bother with it much and never rode it so selling. He also had a Flysurfer Pulse2 6m which I also bought to have some fun with in summer, can't wait to check out both of them, will report back and maybe start a new thread. Cheers

[Michaelr123]

Cheers to both of you!

I would not get the Pansh bar, since you'd have to update it anyway. Any normal 4-line bar will work with A15 or Genesis.

thanks for the info, looks like both Pansh and Peak4's can be flown with a standard 4 line setup (just ditch the 5th line on the pansh kite?).

I'm currently running 27m lines to get way up into that high layered wind climbing up over the trees. Without the bar and lines some of these kites are so cheap I feel like they might be worth picking up to try during all this free time i'll have!

So now comes the "what size is right for me" question, 175lbs, 76cm infinity foil, I feel like I struggle to generate enough power sometimes with my 11m boxer in really light conditions, at which point I wish I had my bigger apollo. I won't claim to be an expert by any means, but 8m seems small unless single skin foils are way more powerful than I realize?

Also, another questions, what's the difference between the few higher aspect foil kites Pansh makes? you've got the A15, Aurora, and now the aeolus as well. seems like there's the most love for the A15, but hey, now you've got 3 things to compare

I look forward to your reviews!

-Michael