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flying a foil kite- tips needed

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tomtom
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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby tomtom » Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:31 pm

"4:1 race style depower"

Please this is genuine question - what is 4:1 race style depower good for. Why is better than 2:1? I just dont know.
Many thanks

t.

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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby foilholio » Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:18 am

kitexpert wrote:Best to keep mixer in factory settings.
If only kite bridles would do that, but they don't. Near continual shrinkage means a kite is never at factory settings.
kitexpert wrote: This means much higher bar pressure and also less AoA change after WAC engages than without it. It may reduce backstall but it won't give more power but less.
First what is power, it is pull from the kite caused by lift and drag.

A WAC line increase camber more. This increases lift and drag, or as the marketing departments of kite brands trained us power. Which bit do you disagree with? That a WAC line increases camber? because mathematics proves that. Or do you disagree that more camber causes an increase in power? Because the wealth of aerodynamic knowledge available proves that. Well then we have your observations, it wouldn't surprise me you couldn't observe this, as well you are stupid.
Mossy 757 wrote: I can't imagine why Foilholio posted that advice, but it's insane that you'd start modifying a brand new kite in the way he suggests.
It's not new, and I highly doubt it had just 12hours on it, or it has some issue from new hence it is being sold. My experience with Sonic is it doesn't backstall easy. Flysurfer are not as infallible as you may think, and have actually gleaned somethings from their customers. Some people have been riding their kites before you were probably even aware of kiting.

Maybe Tomw just doesn't know how not to oversheet a kite, but it sounds to me kite is a bit out of tune.

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jakemoore
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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby jakemoore » Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:53 am

foilholio wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:18 am

First what is power, it is pull from the kite caused by lift and drag.
Pull, lift and drag are all forces. They are vectors. Power is force•velocity or Energy/time. It’s a scalar. High aspect foils are powerful, because they make a big pull when they fly fast.

IIRC when FS kites had a WAC line, people would go “full soft” or even “wac-less” to try and get more low end out of the kite. The issue was not so much steering forces, which do increase with WAC as Kite expert points out. Rather the goal was to improve absolute turning speed, allowing a rider to fly the kite into the window to keep it moving fast and extract power from that movement. WAC-less does require more finesse because there was a greater tendency to backstall.

In my kite tuning I found that moving the B had little effect on performance compared to C so long as it was not over-sheeted to the point of creating drag. Rather the B, combined with WAC, allowed some steering effect once C and Z were totally slack, therefore the kite was controllable when very depowered. Hard steering settings with a more engaged wAC line, along with a shorter B made the top end of the kite more accessable.

I would not consider adding WAC to improve Sonic2’s flight character for riding hydrofoils in light wind.
Last edited by jakemoore on Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jakemoore
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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby jakemoore » Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:18 am

tomtom wrote:
Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:31 pm
"4:1 race style depower"
Racers like it because its easier to set the trim exactly right. If you are trimming a lot especially while riding powered, the forces are less.

If you are more inclined to set it and forget it, then 4:1 is not going to do much for you.

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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby tomtom » Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:08 am

ok thanks - so 4:1 - is sailing boat style - rope in hand and not cleated

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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby FLandOBX » Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:48 pm

jakemoore wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:18 am
tomtom wrote:
Sat Sep 22, 2018 9:31 pm
"4:1 race style depower"
Racers like it because its easier to set the trim exactly right. If you are trimming a lot especially while riding powered, the forces are less.

If you are more inclined to set it and forget it, then 4:1 is not going to do much for you.
Is a bar modified to achieve 4:1 depower by adding 3 pulleys on each side? How are the pulleys attached?

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jakemoore
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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby jakemoore » Sun Sep 23, 2018 4:23 pm

9713D23B-D743-475D-ACCE-E3ED2521ECE1.jpeg
There is a cleat and a long bitter end so it can be adjusted while hiking out. Sailboat style is a good description.

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FLandOBX
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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby FLandOBX » Sun Sep 23, 2018 5:25 pm

jakemoore wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 4:23 pm
9713D23B-D743-475D-ACCE-E3ED2521ECE1.jpeg

There is a cleat and a long bitter end so it can be adjusted while hiking out. Sailboat style is a good description.
AHHH! Got it! Thanks for the image.

Seems like that system could dramatically increase your kite's range IF the kite design could handle the wide changes in pitch. Probably not a system that would work well with anything besides a high aspect race foil??

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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby andylc » Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:13 pm

This trim line is only moving twice the distance of a standard system is it not? I use this system on my Souls and I think I measured it once out of interest. Works well for me, easier to trim on the fly as lower force = more accurate trimming. I don't use the full amount of depower anywhere near though.

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Re: flying a foil kite- tips needed

Postby evan » Sun Sep 23, 2018 7:25 pm

Better focus on the proper bar setup instead of the trim system. For freeriding and twintip boosting a 60cm travel without any trim is enough for me with the bottom 5cm to stall the kite.

I only use trim when racing changing from up- to Downwind and the other way around.


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