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Flysurfer Soul

For all foil kite riders
cwood
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby cwood » Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:11 pm

I have 8, 10, 12m They are the best behaved kites I have flown. Something is off. Turning speed and responsiveness are subjective and will be perceived differently by different people but poor flying behavior is another matter.
Bridles wise, do you know what you are looking at? if you hold the mixer pigtails and tension the bridles and move away from the kite to the side, so all bridles are tensioned, are you seeing distinct layers of A, B, C etc? Pullies and connections without twists? Any loops or knots? It doesn't take much to change the personality of a kite drastically.

Apologies if this is elementary but I have seen people do some wild stuff with foil kites when they don't know what they are supposed to look like.

Have you checked the mixers to be sure they are within spec? I know its new but when presented with unpredictable flying its worth checking.

Kristan
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Kristan » Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:20 pm

cwood wrote:
Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:11 pm
I have 8, 10, 12m They are the best behaved kites I have flown. Something is off. Turning speed and responsiveness are subjective and will be perceived differently by different people but poor flying behavior is another matter.
Bridles wise, do you know what you are looking at? if you hold the mixer pigtails and tension the bridles and move away from the kite to the side, so all bridles are tensioned, are you seeing distinct layers of A, B, C etc? Pullies and connections without twists? Any loops or knots? It doesn't take much to change the personality of a kite drastically.

Apologies if this is elementary but I have seen people do some wild stuff with foil kites when they don't know what they are supposed to look like.

Have you checked the mixers to be sure they are within spec? I know its new but when presented with unpredictable flying its worth checking.
I know how to check mixer and bridles for twists and I do exactly what you have described. But still there might have been an issue when I have landed it to close the valves. I don't remember if I have properly checked the bridles again and that what have caused the issues from the start. But still, when I flew it later I always checked bridles before the start for twists and still Soul flew a bit mediocre. It might have been wind conditions, or might be the mixer, I'll try to check it tomorrow when I'll dry the kite.

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Adventure Logs
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Adventure Logs » Thu Jan 03, 2019 2:24 am

The behavior you are describing definitely indicates there's a problem somewhere. The Soul is one of the most stable foils on the market. Couple questions first, did you buy this kite new or second hand? What bar are you using? Did you do a bridal check and if so are ABCZ equal? Anyway you can take some pictures of the kite's bridal? Did you check to make sure there aren't any knots/loops in the bridal? Something definitely is wrong, but we can help figure it out for you.

=Jason-

grtlakes
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby grtlakes » Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:23 am

Good day congratulations on your purchase.

What you are describing is almost exactly what I experienced when I flew the kite for the first time.
After getting help on this forum I discovered the problem. Rather than laying flat where two lines met there was a twist just prior to a pulley. It was not easily noticeable until I learned what to look for.

I straightened out the twist and problem solved. Thats all it took to turn the nightmare of a kite into a dream.

Enjoy.

Kristan
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Local Beach: Plescheevo lake
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Kristan » Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:26 am

Adventure Logs wrote:
Thu Jan 03, 2019 2:24 am
The behavior you are describing definitely indicates there's a problem somewhere. The Soul is one of the most stable foils on the market. Couple questions first, did you buy this kite new or second hand? What bar are you using? Did you do a bridal check and if so are ABCZ equal? Anyway you can take some pictures of the kite's bridal? Did you check to make sure there aren't any knots/loops in the bridal? Something definitely is wrong, but we can help figure it out for you.

=Jason-
Both kite and bar are brand new, the bar is Flysurfers as well for perfect compatibility. I did not check the mixer yet, gonna do this today. Yes, I did check bridle for any loops, twists and knots before launching, except when the kite acted really strange at the first launch, before the first bow tie, I'm not sure there. Yet whenever I ensured that bridles were fine kite still flew far from perfect. I mean it provided at least some power and pulled me when people around me were on 14m LEIs, it has nice lightwind and upwind performance, but does it reeeally slowly, I wouldn't be able to ride on the water with such speed, that's for sure. And I'm still quite concerned about this kite constantly inverting itself.

Macster
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Macster » Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:52 am

I use 19m lines on the 12m to speed up the turns a bit. I took mine to a lake last week where the wind was blowing 5 - 20 knots and occassionally gusts were coming from 30 degrees in another direction. It was at this point that my soul behaved like what you have described. It never inverted though as I guess I've owned it for about 6 months now and I can quickly make bar and body adjustments to stop it from inverting, though at one point I did get lofted when a high 20+ knot gust came through.

There was one other 15m North Juice out being flown by an experienced friend of mine. He was having a hell of a time too and hindenburged the kite and gave up (I followed him in).

Kristan
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Kristan » Thu Jan 03, 2019 11:20 am

While drying the kite decided to perform mixer test. Surprise-surprise! Right out of the bag, "factory settings". (pardon for the blur, camera refused to focus on the lines)

Image

joriws
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby joriws » Thu Jan 03, 2019 11:38 am

Did you pull with 5kg/10lbs force the lines in picture?

Here is a brand new video by Flysurfer how you can check mixer and also on kite's end..



Kristan
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Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:50 am
Local Beach: Plescheevo lake
Favorite Beaches: Mejvodnoye, Crimea
Style: Freeride
Gear: Kites: Eleveight XS 14m, Paraavis Smile 3 15m. Boards: Flysurfer Radical 6 144x46, Flysurfer Flydoor4 170x50
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Kristan » Thu Jan 03, 2019 11:46 am

joriws wrote:
Thu Jan 03, 2019 11:38 am
Did you pull with 5kg/10lbs force the lines in picture?

Here is a brand new video by Flysurfer how you can check mixer and also on kite's end..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUCmvulkKao
Yup, I used this video as a tutorial. I couldn't perform the long test yet, my apartment is too small for that, I'll do it later on the spot.

Kristan
Frequent Poster
Posts: 265
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:50 am
Local Beach: Plescheevo lake
Favorite Beaches: Mejvodnoye, Crimea
Style: Freeride
Gear: Kites: Eleveight XS 14m, Paraavis Smile 3 15m. Boards: Flysurfer Radical 6 144x46, Flysurfer Flydoor4 170x50
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Russia, Moscow
Has thanked: 10 times
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Re: Flysurfer Soul

Postby Kristan » Thu Jan 03, 2019 1:35 pm

Anyway, for now I have equalized all ABCZ knots. Some folks say that I should not do that and wait for the kite to adjust itself after few sessions. Some other folks said that they've noticed that B line is short as well. I don't know if that was intended, maybe Armin could say something about it. But for now kite is unstable, collapses and flaps the wingtips, which is totally not ok in my book.


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