FS Unity 10 bridle adjustments.

[HaylingBilly]

Hi,
I have bought a FS Unity 10 Deluxe in pretty good condition for very little money. I have used it 3 times with a hydrofoil now and feel that it may not be the complete dog of a design that some people have alluded to; its certainly nothing like the Sonics that i also have! It produces very little power spike when downlooped, goes upwind about as well as a tube kite the same size and comes back downwind drifting slightly better. I bought it mainly to snowkite with next winter and I feel it will do that job very nicely and remove any need for me to carry a pump up a mountain!
Has anyone here had experience altering the bridle? There just seems to be a lot of extra lines on the kite. I am thinking of removing the "anti-inversion" SA1,2 and SZ0,1,2 lines from the front and rear along with reducing the number of Z brake attachments (there are 15! Z attachments each side ) I tried removing the 5th line safety, but the kite span like a windmill when released onto 1 front line.....5th line is now back on.
My hope would be to remove some of the line drag from the kite, as well as a few grams, without greatly affecting the flight. I will not be using it for twintipping of with a surfboard, just on a foil or snow.
Thanks in advance, your thoughts please.
HB

[Flyfish]

Hey Billie,
I agree. My opinion is that they are not that horrible either. I don't twin tip. I just use them for the drifting with surf boards.

Yes, I have fully removed the anti inversion bridals off of My unity's. It's a rediculus amount of needless lines. I think it's useless.
I also removed the 5th line as well. I never tried to flag them out, but I can't stand the drag they produce. So none for me.
As far as the Z line attach. I personally left them all there. But if you find otherwise, please post your experience, I'll pull them too.
One more thing I do is pull the "hard/soft" steering lines off. It frees up the bridals and seems to open them up easier.

Hope that helps

[HaylingBilly]

Thanks Flyfish, I cant download the manual from FS as the file doesn't want to open in Adobe for some reason or other. What do you mean by the Hard/soft steering lines; are you referring to WAC? lines? as i don't think mine has any, just the standard mixer that i am used to from other FS kites.
I will probably go back to 4 lines with a front flag now that i have the kite flying straight and trimmed as I also dislike the added drag of the 5th and it adds complexity to any tangles....
Next time out I will start to reduce the Z count, I am thinking, every other cell, in line with the A,B,C bridle attachments.
HB

[PugetSoundKiter]

I cant download the manual from FS as the file doesn't want to open in Adobe for some reason or other.

[PugetSoundKiter]

HB - I have a 10m Unity DLX too and downloaded the manual some years ago.
I noticed the FS website download does not work for this file now, so I posted it for you above.
I'm interested to hear what you think about using it with a foilboard.
Also design critiquing, most of the load is on the A-Lines, which only has count of 6 on each side...
And I think you're correct, 15 Z-Lines per side is overkill.
Since it is not a lightwind kite I have not modified any bridles.
I like 5th lines for self landing in winds strong enough that I can't backstall land the foil kite.
I was convinced to try the kite when I saw one barely used and found this strapless video, enjoy

[Flyfish]

Hey Billy,
Any luck with reducing the amount of Z attachments?

Thanks for the feedback

[kitexpert]

Actually Unity has a quite sophisticated bridle except brakes and those spanwise lines which are not necessary. Brakes should be cascaded more, it is a mess now. IDK if it would be ok to have brakes on every second rib, quite probably it would work well.

ABC line rows tell Unity is not a cheap design at all, it has plenty of stuff inside. Unity has also relatively high cell count of 29 which means it is a adequately clean wing.

I remember Unity had a very low bar pressure and soft feel. It should be usable kite for hydrofoil.

There is not much to do with ABC line rows because of line attachment point locations (general design of the kite). Perhaps (probably) secondary level could be shorter. Brakes should be redesigned.

[HaylingBilly]

hi Flyfish,
I tried to use the kite on a twintip to see the top end, and was unpleasantly surprised. It had a habit of "clapping wingtips" when a gust came through! It seemed that the leading edge was deforming without enough internal pressure, causing the airflow at the tips to alter and push the tips down to "clap". They would then reform and launch me downwind....a bit scary!
I thought that this cant be correct, so did a full A,B,C,Z length test and found the issue of B and C being too long, making the kite less stable. I have sorted this easily, but then found a torn strap crossing a centre cell, probably from the 'clapping".
Now it flys as it should and i am waiting to try more adjusting. Looking at it all laid out, I cant see why the Z connections that are not inline with A,B,C shouldn't be removed, especially as i have proved to myself that it will only be used on snow and foil from now on.

[foilholio]

The anti inversion lines are just to prevent parts of the kite moving through the bridles. They are mostly a waste of time and can be removed.

The extra Z bridles would probably be in the same theory of extra cell walls in the TE on some kites, that being the TE is thought to be important to keep clean. If you want to remove some of the Z bridles you will have to re adjust the surrounding bridles as the cascades are designed for the existing bridles not for some to be removed. For me the process would involve adding pigtails to some or all remaining Z bridles and adjusting visually and flying till I liked it. Adjusting the Z bridle could be a good way to improve performance especially on an old kite. Generally flattening it, through either shortening the center or extending the tips will make it more efficient but reduce turning. You can disconnect the very tip in that way.