Pulleys on kites

[OzBungy]

Seems to me the pulley/no pulley argument is simply fashion and marketing. None of the posts in this thread have any real credibility. Everyone is trotting out their favorite anecdote and a pseudo-scientific babble to support their opinion. "I've flown more kites than god so my opinion matters more than yours."

Your opinion only matters if you are actually involved in the design and manufacture of kites. Even the home builder needs to temper their enthusiasm based on the number and variety of kites they have produced. Building 1-2-3-4 kites. Good for you. Designing 4-5 commercial product ranges over several years? That counts.

Simple fact of the matter is that the end result is the only thing that matters. You can only assess the quality of a kite by using it, and using it for a significant time. It takes time for your muscle memory to adapt to the feel of something new. If you can't test for yourself then you need to rely on the knowledge and professionalism of the person making the kite.

In terms of using pulleys or not? Why would you exclude a perfectly reasonable mechanism for moving bridle lines around in real time just because some bozo on a forum thinks they're bad? Really? An entire area of design that you can't use because it's not fashionable?

[dwarf]

To understand how pulleyless system give you less bar pressure do this exercise.
Look at the five line kite from the side. Front lines are behind fifth line, right, so they hold certain amount of load even before you touch the back lines.
Look at the side of the pulleyless bridle. Do you see how the bridle does basically the same.
Put the pulley on it and what do you think that holds? It is all on back lines, now.

Haha this guy. Have a look at bridles of most modern kites, majority have 1 pulley that is basically a non active pulley only to accomdate minimal dynamic changes in the LE arc depending on AOA. On many kites the pulleys actually only move when the kite is flagged or extremely depowered. Not really important but my Edge V9 does not flag as fast and smooth as my Prodigies, can clearly see how the pulley helps with flagging the kite.

Agree that this no pulley crap for kites these days is mostly a marketing hype and some people are clearly falling for it basing their opinion on an old crappy kite they once came accross.

[Teabageppo]

From my personal experience, add a bridle, then you need at least one pulley. Otherwise the canopy has to do too much work when changing the angle of attack....it’s gotta spill air somehow. Non pulleyed kites all have that “fly off the front line” feel. Hence the canopy rocks back and forth and deforms more.

The kite that has the most minimal off the front line feel with no pulley is the edge ...but it still has it.

Again this is personal opinions. To argue one point of view is right or wrong is just plain silly. It all depends.

I do think it was a marketing angle the last 5 years, this no pulley stuff...but the argument is becoming more balanced again.

No pulleys does not mean a more direct feel.... I feel people are starting to see the theory doesn’t match the reality.

It all depends.

[cglazier]

The video posted on the first page of this topic explains the reason for bridle pulleys.
Here is the link if you missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... h_SUh1xUZY

And here are two diagrams from Airush and Naish that show why pulleys work.

Naish Pivot Bridle.JPG (47.85 KiB) Viewed 1643 times

[TheKiteDesigner]

I have been designing kites for 17 years. I love reading these forum posts where everyone has a very different opinion for whatever reasons. Here's my experience with pulleys.

Designing a kite with pulleys is the easiest thing to do, all you have to do is make a kite with lots of attachment points, fly the kite and experiment by attaching the bridle to certain points until you get it right. I'm not saying it's easy I'm just saying it's about 1000 times easier than making a good pulley less kite. It's taken me about 15 years to design a kite that has More power and more depower while holding its shape and turning easily and faster turning and more wind range than previouslydesigned pulley kites. if you do it right a pulley less kite will hold it's shape when completely over powered and powered up and turning
And Less bar pressure. With a pullyless kite every bridal line has to be accurate to half a centimetre with a kite with pulleys there is a lot more forgiveness if you get a measurement not quite right in my experience it's much harder to make a good kite without pulleys. A kite without pulleys can outperform any other kite with pulleys it's just much much harder to design.

Kites with less struts are harder to design that's why over the years we have gone from 8 struttless kites to 0 strut kites. I think three strut kites are good

Shorter bridals are much harder to design that's why over the years bridles have evolve from ridiculously long bridles to short bridles

Designing a kite without pulleys is much harder to design that's why over the years we have gone from
8 pulley kites to 2 or 4 pulley kites. I think no pulley are the best.

So making a short bridal, three strut, pully less kite is pretty damn hard to get it right.

I will never go back to making a kite with pulleys I see no reason/advantage to do this. I also believe a well-designed kite with no pulleys feels better than a kite with pulleys And that is just one of many opinions. I used voice to text to write this so spelling natzies please piss off...

[Faxie]

The video posted on the first page of this topic explains the reason for bridle pulleys.
Here is the link if you missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... h_SUh1xUZY

And here are two diagrams from Airush and Naish that show why pulleys work.

v3-bridle-system.png

Naish Pivot Bridle.JPG

Please explain why my old Bandits had almost zero response when depowered a fair bit.

If your kite gets locked in position with a fixed bridle, then you haven't designed it right. What AR and Naish are doing is comparing the exact same bridle with and without pulleys, and that's not fair if they designed it to be used with pulleys in the first place. But those companies really like their marketing, so I'm not surprised...

[iriejohn]

... What AR and Naish are doing is comparing the exact same bridle with and without pulleys, and that's not fair if they designed it to be used with pulleys in the first place. But those companies really like their marketing, so I'm not surprised...

[Kamikuza]

More bridal attachment points = less load the LE has to carry between the attachment points = less likely to buckle under load and "low" LE pressure. Attachment point placement becomes vital....

I've flown some kites that just buckle when you sheet the bar in despite only being moderately loaded, especially between rear lines and the next bridle point...having pulleys or not doesn't seem to make much difference.

A good design is a good design. Same goes for pulleys

[marlboroughman]

Dude where from do you come up with that stuff? Bar pressure has no relation to pulleys what so ever, only to the overall kite design. There are pulley-less kites what will rip our you forearms just as there are kites with pulleys that you can ride all day long without any of your pinkies getting cramped up - and the other way around. One of the reasons why I dumped C4-s, was the fact that as of 2012 Ozone has increased the bar pressure beyond any sense.

This industry is driven by beginners, fifth line haters and marketing hype followers. If it wasn't, all Ckites and open Ckites would be flown on five lines. I suspect it is more difficult to decrease bar pressure with bridle on a Ckite because the wings are square and close behind the nose so you don't get enough leverage. I would not buy a bridled CKite but you go ahead and buy yourself a pulley bridled garbage or whatever latest fashion.

[matth]

Seems to me the pulley/no pulley argument is simply fashion and marketing. None of the posts in this thread have any real credibility. Everyone is trotting out their favorite anecdote and a pseudo-scientific babble to support their opinion. "I've flown more kites than god so my opinion matters more than yours."

Your opinion only matters if you are actually involved in the design and manufacture of kites. Even the home builder needs to temper their enthusiasm based on the number and variety of kites they have produced. Building 1-2-3-4 kites. Good for you. Designing 4-5 commercial product ranges over several years? That counts.

Simple fact of the matter is that the end result is the only thing that matters. You can only assess the quality of a kite by using it, and using it for a significant time. It takes time for your muscle memory to adapt to the feel of something new. If you can't test for yourself then you need to rely on the knowledge and professionalism of the person making the kite.

In terms of using pulleys or not? Why would you exclude a perfectly reasonable mechanism for moving bridle lines around in real time just because some bozo on a forum thinks they're bad? Really? An entire area of design that you can't use because it's not fashionable?

Reminds me of peoples opinions on seat harnesses. Most who trash them have never worn one. Most likely because they don't look cool.