No AL, my PG and I are not designed for ground impact..
But to be honest no kite, tube or foil, is designed for that.
Actually that’s incorrect. Flysurfer designs their foils for ground impacts. There’s a YouTube video floating around when they were testing the Soul and were constantly tomahawking it.
Right, so the other brands are not doing the same? Only FS is? I alai think none are. Who else think the same, kites are not designed for impact?
Intrestingly, our local kite doctor has about the same number of broken panels from the two major brands.
Maybe u just dont smash yours hence sewing is not stretched by a few mm?
Never said others don’t, just I know FS designs their foils to take ground impacts. A couple panels are better than entire kite tearing apart. On the Speeds, they use to have Velcro blowoff vents which would open in large impacts.
Hi downunder and Adventure Logs:
About crash tests on foil kites:
Yes, first hand, FS uses quite some effort to crash test their kites at least since around 2005. It maybe started with some more blown up Psycho2 and Extacy models in this time and for sure during prototyping of their speed1, which already named the problem. The before shown video is not necessarily one of the most serious crash test videos, but the following video shows a test that has documented the relevant values as impact angle, speed, etc.
Many think the blow out velcros are also made for crashing and therefore even don't close them proberly, but they are not, as the structure will be already be destroyed before they have the chance to open. Also the better placed non velcro vales in the following videos are some where around: Are they worse the weight, which since many years also FS seems to answer with: No.
Any strong impact will always load the sewings and will cause your kite to drink water faster for the rest of his live. So try to avoid it, even if no profile visibly rips inside. By the way, quite some will ride with riped profiles and never see it. Safest way is to blow the kite up on land with a ventilator to see it. Flysurfer has given a free repair guarantie for quite some years for their kites, as they expected not too many kites will rip by crashes, as far I can see on their HP actually they seem not to give free repair any more. But they also never done it for all types of kites. Ultra light race kites for example made for experts never had free repair as they were not constructed to withstand hard drops.
To come back to Airwave Koala:
I would not be worried about impact stability as the Koala is with 2,2 kg for the 10 m² even a bid heavier than the Soul with 2,04 kg. But both pretty close togehter and therefore don't expect too much difference in crash stability nor in light wind flying. Just if a brand tells you that their kites weight 30% less, but have the same impact and wear stability, then I would start to be sceptical.
kinda apples to oranges. Your paraglider isn't designed to take a ground impact over and over again I assume?
No AL, my PG and I are not designed for ground impact..
But to be honest no kite, tube or foil, is designed for that.
Actually that’s incorrect. Flysurfer designs their foils for ground impacts. There’s a YouTube video floating around when they were testing the Soul and were constantly tomahawking it.
Stop biting man!
FS, and other brands, makes there kite not for ground impact.. water ok, not for ground.. the smallest shell, rock or whatever will damage the kite.
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Great with new foil kite brand
Can't find any information about the bridle mixer set-up!
Apparently they have some room for improvement with their informative side but kite itself looks good and also seems to perform well.
IMO it is quite obvious mixer is usual 1:2:4 two pulley mixer but of course they should give clear info of it. In manual there is some advice on how to judge if kite is out of tune and also how fix to it by undoing a knot from a pulley line Not the most complete or refined solution but for sure it can help a bit. To be able to untie a knot some lines have to be removed which is a bit nuisance or even worse.
Perhaps they could make it more efficient by adding more knots? Pulley lines can shrink quite a lot. Or just make it properly from the beginning
Hi downunder and Adventure Logs:
About crash tests on foil kites:
Yes, first hand, FS uses quite some effort to crash test their kites at least since around 2005. It maybe started with some more blown up Psycho2 and Extacy models in this time and for sure during prototyping of their speed1, which already named the problem. The before shown video is not necessarily one of the most serious crash test videos, but the following video shows a test that has documented the relevant values as impact angle, speed, etc.
Many think the blow out velcros are also made for crashing and therefore even don't close them proberly, but they are not, as the structure will be already be destroyed before they have the chance to open. Also the better placed non velcro vales in the following videos are some where around: Are they worse the weight, which since many years also FS seems to answer with: No.
Any strong impact will always load the sewings and will cause your kite to drink water faster for the rest of his live. So try to avoid it, even if no profile visibly rips inside. By the way, quite some will ride with riped profiles and never see it. Safest way is to blow the kite up on land with a ventilator to see it. Flysurfer has given a free repair guarantie for quite some years for their kites, as they expected not too many kites will rip by crashes, as far I can see on their HP actually they seem not to give free repair any more. But they also never done it for all types of kites. Ultra light race kites for example made for experts never had free repair as they were not constructed to withstand hard drops.
To come back to Airwave Koala:
I would not be worried about impact stability as the Koala is with 2,2 kg for the 10 m² even a bid heavier than the Soul with 2,04 kg. But both pretty close togehter and therefore don't expect too much difference in crash stability nor in light wind flying. Just if a brand tells you that their kites weight 30% less, but have the same impact and wear stability, then I would start to be sceptical.
Ok,
so "testing" is one thing, and "designing" is obviously taking the input from testing. In a perfect world.
However, how would one "design" a kite for impact? Is an airfoil designed for that? Hardly. Placing magnetic or velcro opening here and there is not designing for impact. Paragliders have that. All of them. It is not anything new. Posted video by AL was actually promoted as a relaunch capabilities after the crash. We can take hours and hours of crashes in a "controlled" environment which proves nothing actually. It only proves that the kite survived on that occasion.
~
Koala? I would not like having a koala kite knowing that most of them are infected with chlamydia Thanks, but no thanks
Chlamydia is not the bad name tho Cholera, chimera, covid, why not?
Posted video by AL was actually promoted as a relaunch capabilities after the crash. We can take hours and hours of crashes in a "controlled" environment which proves nothing actually. It only proves that the kite survived on that occasion.
Wrong yet again lol, did you even read the video title or description??? The video was crash testing, nothing about relaunching
Back to the topic, I'd love to get my hands on a 5m, I hope they come to the states. I'd like to see more and more smaller foils(less than 6m). I'm hoping FS comes out with a smaller size on the next gen Soul. Near single-skin performance with all the benefits of a traditional foil kite.